On the tenth day of June, things suddenly became tense outside Chengde City.
Lei Ming stood on the bow of the ship and carefully observed Liang Jun's camp.
The terrain of Chengde is low-lying (now it is at the bottom of Wabu Lake), and it can be regarded as a smaller version of Xiapi.
The latter was surrounded by water, like an isolated island in the water, so Xuzhou Li Zhong gave up for a time.
Chengde is surrounded by water on two sides, namely the west and south sides of the city.
To the west of the city is water, and because of the low-lying terrain, the river here is extremely wide.
A small lake has been accumulated in the south of the city. Especially in the rainy summer and autumn, the reeds are densely covered with small boats, which is very convenient for sneak attacks.
Therefore, the more than ten thousand people of the Zuyue tribe were divided into two places, one in the middle of the city and one in the east of the city.
The water and land camps of the Jin army were located in the south and west of the city.
When attacking the city, the soldiers came out from Luzhai - unless there was really no space, the city wall could not be located close to the water and would be easily damaged by floods. Generally, there was a distance of at least two miles.
When defending, rely on the crossbows on the forts and naval ships to kill the enemy.
If the location of the water and land camp is chosen well, for example, the land camp is located on a protrusion extending into the water, then the navy can even sail to the front of the land camp, and the land camp will be difficult to capture, because when the enemy attacks the camp, it will not only face the front
In a forward strike, the flanks will also be covered by crossbows, and casualties will be greatly amplified.
Naturally, the newly arrived Liang Jun could not set up camp in the west or south of the city, so they chose the north of the city.
The night is getting darker, and Liang Jun's camp is still brightly lit.
The young men worked all night long, still digging trenches, building earthen walls, and erecting fences, as busy as tending to their own crop fields.
There was a gentle sound of paddling in the reeds ahead.
If you listen carefully, there seems to be nervous breathing.
The night in June is still very hot, the air is stuffy, and it feels like it will rain before it rains, which is very uncomfortable.
The chirping of insects and frogs disappeared, leaving only the sound of wood pulp churning the water, and the occasional clash of weapons - very slight, but so harsh in the silent night.
Lei Ming had a white cloth tied on his head and his whole body was in plain clothes.
The soldiers behind him and the dozens of nearby ships were all like this.
In the black, it might be a little conspicuous, but he didn't care.
The uncle died in battle and the whole army was defeated. In order to go back and explain it easily, they needed a justifiable victory, otherwise everyone would be unable to hold their heads high.
The boat slid gently, as light as a fallen leaf on the water.
When we drove into the reed marsh, everyone lowered their bodies, and the sound of pricking was heard non-stop.
The speed of the ship slowed down as the land was raised.
The boatman used wood pulp to push it into the mud at the bottom of the river until the boat anchored in a calm pool.
Bubbles overflowed from the bottom of the river, making a gurgling sound, and an unpleasant smell filled the surrounding air, but no one cared about this, everyone was waiting for the signal.
The process of waiting is anxious and even scary.
The sky was covered with clouds and thunder continued, but not a drop of rain fell. My clothes were wet and stuck to my body, and I couldn't see my fingers...
Everything makes people feel irritated and even want to yell to vent.
But no one dared to move.
This kind of small-scale raid has been practiced many times in the past battles against river bandits and barbarians. They knew where the key points were and even how to better disguise themselves, so they stayed calm as much as possible and waited for orders.
"Kill..." A burst of noise suddenly floated in the silent night.
There was a slight commotion in the fleet, which was quickly stopped.
"Kill the thief——" The shouting of killing became more and more fierce, mixed with the faint rhythm of drums and the whistling of crossbow bolts piercing the night sky.
Still no orders came.
Lei Ming's breathing became heavier and heavier, and the hand holding the handle of the knife was so slippery that it could almost drip with water.
Not far away, a cicada chirping could be heard from a tree growing on a sandbank in the river. After the increasingly violent shouts of killing came, the cicadas suddenly stopped chirping.
Ding Zhuang, who was working on the shore, seemed to have received the order. He stopped what he was doing and started to form a team.
This seemed to be a signal, and suddenly the sound of drums resounded throughout the river.
"Crash--" The water was flowing in the pool, and under the dim light of the fire, the silhouettes of the ships instantly shattered.
Tall reeds fell down one after another, and countless arrows flew out from the reeds, knocking down all the Liang Jun who were standing on the shore on guard.
"Kill the thief!" The boatman struggled to slide the boat. When he was about to approach the shore, he used an oar to prop up the boat and used the soles of his feet to push the boat sideways and lightly hit the mud bank.
The high-pitched shouts of killing instantly resounded through the night sky, and the black skirmishers rushed to the shore like a tide, where was the brightly lit Liang Jun camp. They came from a long way, and their footing was not stable, and they didn't even have time to set up camp.
This is a good opportunity for a night attack to dampen his spirit.
****
Qin San, the governor of Onobu, had just laid down with his clothes on when he was quickly called out.
Under the guidance of his subordinates, he quickly saw the enemy troops heading towards the shore.
Outside the shallow trench, hundreds of people were rushing towards their homes. They were being chased so hard that they were crying for their fathers and mothers. Under the light of the brazier, they were slashed down by swords like swords. Every time they landed, someone would be thrown to the ground.
The Fubing tribe that urged the people to work was also stunned by the surprise attack.
Some people turned around and ran away.
Someone shouted to stop Minzhuang from attacking our camp.
Some people called for their companions and tried to form a formation to defend themselves against the enemy.
But it was all in vain. A little resistance, caught in the overall defeat, had no effect at all.
"Trash!" Qin San yelled angrily and asked someone to wear armor for him.
Amidst the sound of Ding Ling getting dressed, his eyes were still fixed on the battlefield.
The sound of neat footsteps sounded from behind the trench.
It only took a few breaths for the three hundred soldiers to go from sitting on the ground to standing up and lining up. When they arrived at the east side of the ditch like a moving city wall, the mob on the west side had already poured in.
With almost no hesitation, the sword and shield men stepped forward to block the attack, and the sound of bows and strings sounded continuously behind them.
The dazed mobs were first hit with shields, chopped with swords, and then killed by dense arrows, and were quickly driven away.
The remaining people didn't dare to go any further and fled to both sides.
The common soldiers who came ashore were as powerful as a rainbow, chasing after them and killing them with great pleasure.
"Kill the thief!" This time it was Liang Jun who shouted.
After the first group of people shot the arrows, they hung their bows on their waists and drew their swords from their backs.
"Boom!" A thunder fell, lighting up half of the night sky instantly.
The three hundred left flying dragon guards all jumped into the shallow ditch and marched forward in a row.
On the west side of the trench, Prussian troops in twos and threes have jumped into the trench.
"Poof!" The heavy sword quickly slashed at the unsteady common soldier, and the screams were extremely loud, adding more cruel elements to this chaotic night.
"Dang!" The machete struck the armor, almost causing sparks to fly.
The body of the soldier who was hit jumped up, and he quickly slashed with his backhand. The heavy sword whizzed and struck the enemy's shoulder and spleen bones.
The sound of the sword cutting into flesh and the sound of bones shattering sounded almost simultaneously. The man flew up with a kick, sending the enemy in front of him flying away.
In the thick darkness, it seemed that one could still see the blood gushing out like a fountain from the necks of the enemy soldiers.
"Boom!" The second thunder fell, and the trench was almost filled with soldiers.
Their expressions were cold, there were obvious blood stains on their sword blades and armor leaves, and at their feet lay warm corpses that were still twitching.
More Jin soldiers surged forward.
They didn't know what was happening in front of them. The night gave them cover. They were night attackers. They had a psychological advantage. The enemy must have panicked and fled.
A more violent collision began at the edge of the trench.
Liu Ang, the leader of the Fubing team and son of Liu Ling, swung his sword and slashed horizontally. The powerful sword edge cut into the enemy's legs and feet. He almost felt the enemy's bones shattering.
The enemy screamed and fell into the trench.
Liu Ang stepped aside, but unexpectedly another corpse fell in front of him, knocking him to the ground.
In the chaos, someone had already stepped on him. He was so angry that he cursed, but no one paid attention to him.
The sound of screams falling to the ground was endless, and corpses fell one after another, almost filling the western half of the trench.
Liu Ang stood up with all his strength, stepped on the corpse and rushed forward.
"Boom!" The third thunder fell.
The armored warriors were already standing on the western edge of the trench.
Someone raised the heavy sword high, completely ignoring the wide opening of the middle door. They were completely risking their lives in a ruthless way. The blade was full of gaps and bloodstains.
Someone stabbed the enemy soldier who fell to the ground mercilessly. The armor leaves were covered with blood, and a piece of intestine seemed to be hanging on them.
The figures in the trench were looking longingly, and the sword blades and armor leaves shone brightly under the lightning.
The armored warriors almost subconsciously arranged their formation and lined up in a row.
The thunder disappeared, and heavy raindrops fell, extinguishing the remaining torches and extinguishing all the light.
Amidst the patter of rain, there were only the sounds of neat footsteps and the screams that came one after another.
Lei Ming stumbled and was driven back.
The blood is fading, the body is getting cold, and fear is welling up in my heart.
His ears were filled with the sounds of chaotic footsteps, panicked shouts, and screams of weapons being inserted into his body.
His body was knocked around and he almost fell to the ground.
Urgent footsteps sounded behind him, getting closer and closer.
He drew his sword and cut down the man in front of him, then ran wildly and rushed to the river bank with all his strength.
A faint light lit up in the reed marsh. It flickered on and off amid the wind and rain, and seemed to be extinguished soon.
He laughed nervously.
He grabbed the clothes on his body with one hand, wiped the rain off his face, opened his eyes wide, and ran towards the reed swamp.
The rain was getting heavier and heavier, hitting the river hard and making a crisp sound.
But no matter how dense the sound of rain was, it seemed that it could not cover up the violent shout that resounded throughout the world: "Kill!"
"Wow!" One foot had already stepped into the muddy water. Lei Ming was overjoyed and finally escaped.
"Crash!" The sound of wood pulp churning the river water sounded, and the boat slowly left the river bank and drifted into the distance.
The slanting wind came and the rain became more intense.
The lights on the boat were extinguished, and nothing could be seen in the rain. Only deep darkness remained, just like his state of mind.
More people rushed to the shore, rushed into the reed marsh, and cried in the direction of the ship.
It's useless, no one will look back, no one will come to rescue them.
Lei Ming was so angry that he struck the water with his knife.
"Kill!" A high-pitched roar sounded from the shore.
The sound of "Puff" was heard continuously, and corpses were thrown into the river one after another, and there was no sound again.
Lei Ming threw away everything he could, plunged into the water, and quickly disappeared under the rain.
Almost instantly, dense arrows were shot out.
Among the reeds, there were screams one after another, and more splashing sounds in the water.
Fortunately, the rain is getting heavier and heavier.
Arrows were no longer shot, killing sounds were no longer heard, and the whole world was shrouded in the power of nature.
The battle is over.
****
It rained all night and didn't stop during the day on the 11th.
Shan Xia walked on the creaking wooden boards in the water village.
The big flag of "Supervise the Military Mountains in Yangzhou Jiangbei" was soaked through, and it was wrapped dejectedly on the flagpole, just like his state of mind at this time.
In a night attack yesterday, a total of 3,000 land and sea soldiers were dispatched, 1,500 each from the west and south of the city.
They came back one after another in the middle of the night, and the results were not very good.
At 1 o'clock in the morning, less than 500 soldiers came back from the west of the city, most of them were naval troops. More than 100 people swam to the other side and were not picked up until dawn.
The fighting in the south of the city was not good either, but the retreat was fairly orderly, with a total of a thousand people returning.
After listening to the battle, he was silent for a long time.
The Liang people had just arrived and were not familiar with the terrain and their fighting style. They were suddenly attacked and were a little confused at first, but they quickly organized a counterattack and drove all the Jin soldiers who came ashore to sneak attack into the river.
This reaction and this fighting power frightened him quite a bit.
There is no other choice but to stick to it.
After the camp tour was over, Shan Xia met Lu Wan. The two looked at each other and both smiled bitterly.
"Sit for a while." Shan Ya asked his soldiers to bring two couches and place them in a corner of the camp.
Amidst the continuous rain, the forest of masts was faintly visible.
In the water pool, there are hundreds of boats, large and small, moored, one after another, crowded together.
Occasionally, a few ships would sail out to patrol and explore along the river.
Most of them were parked there lifelessly, as if waiting for the order to withdraw.
"There's no need to be anxious, Governor." Lu Wan said, "It's such a heavy rain, but I don't know how many days it will rain.
I just went to Luzhai to take a look and found that the trench was full of water. By night, both sides of the trench would be flooded. In this situation, the battle was impossible. Even if the rain stopped, the Liang people would not be able to attack in a while.
Come."
Shanya nodded silently.
There is about a mile of depression between Luzhai and the city wall, which will be flooded sooner or later. Even if the water recedes, it will still be muddy, and Liang's army will only become a living target if it attacks.
Even if the sun comes out later and dries up the muddy ground, it's just a deep ditch and a high fort to defend the camp.
Even if Liang Jun fights ten in a field battle, under the flank attack of the navy, they will break through this amphibious company.
It is impossible without paying heavy casualties.
Of course, it can be seen from this plan that Shan Xia has officially admitted that the land division of the Jin Dynasty could not defeat the Liang army in the field, and now they can only rely on fortifications, city defenses, and navy sneak attacks to survive.
That's it for this battle.
"Grand Governor, please don't think that you won nothing from this battle." Lu Wan added: "The more than 30,000 land and sea soldiers we brought here have been trained a lot. Next time if tens of thousands of people go out to fight, there will be chaos.
There will be less. Jianye Wentian and Wuxi have not fought this kind of battle seriously for many years.
Come on. Shao Thief is helping you train your troops. Why do you want to do so much? No matter how many bad battles you fight, you won’t be able to train them. If you fight too many battles like this, even if you lose, as long as you don’t break your muscles and bones, you can take away most of the generals.
Go back, recruit new recruits, practice hard, and you will definitely be able to play better next time."
"The most fearful thing is the kind of person who loses all his skills in one battle. Not only does he fail to become a soldier, but he loses all his capital. He can only recruit new soldiers and train them all over again. Before they are fully trained, he goes to the battlefield again and is defeated miserably.
, more than half of them were killed or injured. For the current plan, we should take all the people from Jiangdong back and leave all the extra resources to Hefei.
"The native soldiers in Lujiang, Huainan, Anfeng, Guangling and other counties are actually not bad. To put it bluntly, they may be better than the imperial troops brought by the governor. The successive governors of Jiangbei will recruit these native soldiers to go north to fight with the Yuzhou Shao soldiers
Many fights, maybe a field battle
No, but the defense of the city is competent. Shao's silver spears and Hei Shao's elite soldiers are famous all over the world, but how long can they be used to attack the city? There are tens of thousands of native soldiers, and they have prepared food and grass for half a year. The city of Hefei is high and the pond is deep.
It’s not difficult. What I’m most afraid of is actually the battle between waves.”
"!" Shan Ya suddenly stood up, looked at the floating duckweeds in the pond, and said with a bitter smile: "If Shi Yao had said this before the war, I would not have listened. Perhaps, now I can only stick to it and wait for a turn."
What is the turning point? He couldn't explain clearly. He only had a vague idea: to accumulate war experience through defense, train new troops, clarify the military system, and gradually close the gap with Shao Bing. As long as the Lu Division
It no longer collapses in a single battle and has a certain field combat ability. Then, by cooperating with the navy, it is possible to defend half of the country.
According to Shao Thief's soldier book, the fastest improvement stage is from new recruits to veterans, with combat power soaring, but it is much slower to go from veteran soldiers to strong soldiers. He does not expect to become a very strong soldier, but now he has these rabble-rousers.
, there is indeed a great possibility of improvement. Even if you change the military system and practice seriously for more than a year, you can make a lot of progress.
No one is born to fight, and no one is born to be powerful. Practice slowly and fight slowly, and you may be able to get through the stage when Shao Thief is at his most powerful.
"I'm afraid there will be a big dispute in the court after we go back." Shan Ya said again.
Lu Wan didn't say much this time.
He didn't want to get involved in the dispute between Zhuge Hui and Shan Ya. He just hoped that the two would not fight to the death and ruin the overall situation.
"Shi Yao, tomorrow you will lead a navy south to Yangyuan." Shan Ya said, "Take the eight thousand newly arrived soldiers back to Fei."
"Yes." Lu Wan responded.
Starting from the 12th, it rained intermittently, almost cloudy and rainy every day.
Water levels in rivers and lakes near low-lying Chengde County have surged across the board.
The Jin army even withdrew part of Luzhai, and the Liang army also moved its camp to a higher place, but far away from the front line battlefield.
On the 15th, Shan Xia received good news: a section of the Liang cavalry was discovered in the northeast of Hefei City. The section was plagued by diseases and hungry, and many horses died on the road. Moreover, due to continuous rain, it was difficult to gallop.
They are plundering food and grass from the villages.
The defenders advanced by land and water and defeated them. The generals who cut off Liang defeated Yiyu, and the rest of the army dispersed.
But Shan Xia no longer wanted to fight, because there was also an epidemic in his army.
He believed that the situation in the Liang Army camp opposite was not much better, because the northerners had a harder time adapting to the weather in Huainan than they did.
On the 20th, the rain finally stopped.
At this time, news came from the north: the navy had pulled out the wooden piles set up by the Liang people in Feikou Wai, destroyed one pontoon bridge, and was preparing to go all out to remove the second obstacle and completely destroy the two pontoon bridges between Ershishan and let Liang Liang
The army ran out of food and looked for opportunities to annihilate its navy.
This news made Shan Xia a little shaken, because it seemed that there was an opportunity to completely wipe out Liang Jun's soldiers and Silver Spear Army.
Disease, food shortage, rain...
If the families of Xuzhou's Zuyue tribe officers and soldiers are brought here to stage a drama of "embarrassment on all sides", it seems to be a better chance.
But almost at the same time, news came that Shao thieves had conquered Liangzhou.
Xu, a lieutenant in charge of the army, fell ill and died within a few days. The epidemic in the army became more and more serious. If we wait any longer, the army may be wiped out.
Chapter completed!