Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 1034
A huge fire ignited near Qingkou.

Xu Wen is also capable and very decisive.After receiving the report from the scouts, they immediately organized auxiliary troops to burn all the supplies that were piled up outside and could not be withdrawn in time.

Food, fodder, tools, tents, wound medicine, etc., all ignited a fire, and thick smoke billowed straight into the sky.

This person seems elegant and easy-going, but he is not sloppy in his actions, and he is also a ruthless character.

Li Tangbin arrived at Qingkou on the evening of the first day of May. The first thing he did was to follow the order of King Xia to send scouts upstream to patrol the river bank to see if anyone was secretly building a dam to stop the water.

He was not very satisfied with King Xia's remote control.As a general, can you not pay attention to this?Qingkou is low-lying, can I be on guard?
But the scouts who went out to patrol did have something to gain: they met their peers.

Obviously, everyone was thinking the same thing.Fighting in Huainan is really nothing new.Yang Xingmi became addicted to playing with water, Sun Ru was washed away by the flood in Xuanzhou in May, and now it is May, Yang Xingmi wants to repeat the old trick?

The frontal battle began on the third day of May. The Dragon and Tiger Army first launched an attack, trying to attack the camp held by the Huai soldiers along the narrow passage.

But they retreated after only one attack, and replaced the Tutuan villagers.

Swamps and puddles are everywhere, and the terrain is limited. Frontal attacks cannot deploy troops. The arrows of the Huai people are very fierce, and the casualties are too great.

It should be said that Xiangyong worked very hard.It took only two days to fill in all kinds of obstacles and try to launch an attack.After they collapsed, the Dragon Tiger Army and the Yi Cong Army followed, and within three days they broke through two camps, killed more than [-] thieves, and their momentum was like a rainbow.

Later, Li Tangbin sent people to cut wood downstream, as if to build a pontoon bridge.The remaining ships of the Huai Army immediately went down the river to stop their attempt.And this transfer also relieved the pressure on the frontal battlefield - when attacking the camp, they were always shot from the side by the crossbows on the warships, and the accumulated casualties were not small.

On the evening of the eighth day of the fifth lunar month, Xu Wen climbed to the watchtower of the camp and observed the enemy's formation.

Zhang Hao held the epee that was still dripping blood, panting heavily.

Li Shenfu, the governor of Chuzhou, also came. He sent people to send [-] bundles of arrows, and at the same time sent [-] Chuzhou state soldiers and [-] township braves to reinforce the Qingkou camp.

Xia Bing was a bit fierce, even though the battlefield conditions were not good for them, he still charged and killed with high morale, which made the Huai soldiers who had camps guarding them a little flustered.If you let go of fighting in the field, it will be fine, and you must not be defeated by a wave of people-in the past few days, it is not when you have not gone out to fight in the city. In fact, there have been four or five times, but the Huai army only won once, that is, the first time. , Still bullying Xia people who are not familiar with the battlefield environment, relying on the assistance of the navy ships that suddenly came over, beheaded more than a thousand elite soldiers of Xia Junyi's army, and returned with a big victory.

"The air route to Surabaya is actually no longer available." Li Shenfu looked at the scattered battlefield and said with emotion.

"Emissary Li, if the boats are gathered to go north, the Xia people will not be able to stop them. The Surabaya route may or may not make sense," Xu Wen said.

Li Shenfu smiled.

In his view, this battle has lost its opportunity.Now that Xia Jun has killed Qingkou, Xuzhou is already very dangerous.

This danger comes from the psychological level, that is, have we been abandoned?This is something that every Xuzhou martial artist doubts.If no adjustments are made and this kind of thinking is allowed to spread, Xuzhou will be in danger.

"In my opinion, it's better to withdraw Xuzhou's army and civilians to the south, and count as much as you can go." Li Shenfu said: "After that, don't even defend Xiapi, and retreat directly to the Huaishui River, relying on Jiancheng and the boat division to defend against the enemy. The further you go To the north, the narrower the river, the shallower the water, the more difficult it is for warships to move.”

Li Shenfu is capable and pointed out the problem to the point.

Xuzhou is like a fragrant bait, luring the Huai army to continuously invest resources in it, and then all of them are lost there.Fighting in Huaibei, are you really confident that you can win?

In history, Li Shenfu was the only two generals who remained undefeated in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties. His vision is vicious, and he can see very clearly the power balance between the enemy and us. The other one is naturally Fu Cunshen He has commanded battles more than a hundred times in his life without losing a single one.

In comparison, Fu Cunshen's record seems to have a higher gold content.He defeated Helian Duo, the great chief of Tuyuhun, defeated Zhu Quanzhong, defeated the warlords in Guanzhong, and went north to defeat Khitan.Li Shenfu is a little suspected of picking up weak chickens to improve his record, but he is still good. After all, it is not easy to win again and again with the strong.

"Give up Xuzhou, the king is probably unwilling." Xu Wen actually agreed with Li Shenfu's idea, but he stayed by Yang Xingmi's side all year round, knowing the obsession in King Wu's heart—maybe it can be called delusion?
"The situation is pressing. Sometimes you have to resign yourself to your fate and wait for the right time." Li Shenfu sighed and said, "Be careful. King Wu has been playing hide-and-seek with the Shao thief in the west for so long, so he should wake up."

"What time is it? Talking like a cloud and fog." Zhang Hao asked Li Shenfu in a rough voice because he didn't like Li Shenfu.

Li Shenfu didn't compete with this stupid man, and said leisurely: "The time may have passed. At the beginning, we shouldn't have tied our hands and feet, and went directly north to snatch Zhu Quanzhong's territory, and received his defeated soldiers and surrendered generals as much as possible. The situation will be much better. It's a pity that King Wu He hesitated, missed the opportunity, and finally got Xuzhou. What, what! "

Li Shenfu, the governor of Chuzhou, dared to "slander" the King of Wu like this, while Xu Wen was the general of the Yamen, so he didn't dare, so he could only change the subject and said: "Keep your mouth clean, and you have to rely on Li Shijun."

"It's just a trivial matter." Li Shenfu said with a smile: "If you really can't hold it anymore, you don't need to open the Huai River embankment, break a few cofferdams, divert water, and wash the Qingkou into a muddy pond. Maybe—— It doesn't have to be so troublesome."

Li Shenfu looked up at the roaring military flag, and said, "The rainy season is coming."

Cofferdam is a relatively common water conservancy project in Huainan area.To put it bluntly, it is to compete for land in the swamp, that is, to block the water with dams and artificially create a field.There are many such projects in Chuzhou, and there are even projects to build cofferdams to block seawater.In the Huainan area, there are actually many places named after "Polders", such as Yixu, Erxu... Eleven, Erxu, etc.

Guochao developed Jiangnan by draining the swamp little by little and slowly transforming it.Needless to say, the cost is high and the transformation is very difficult.During the Yuanhe period of Emperor Xianzong, the household registration and land acres in the whole country were checked. The average household in the south of the Taihu Lake Basin has only a few mu or more than ten mu of land, which is far inferior to that in the north, which shows the difficulty of development.

What Li Shenfu meant was to let the gates on the cofferdam be opened, not hesitate to destroy the farmland, but also to release water to stop Xia Jun.

The drums of war in the north are rumbling, and the murderous aura is soaring, and another wave of offensive strikes.

******
"Zhou Ben wants to run?" At the place where Xu and Si handed over, Shao Shude received the information from the scouts.

Li Yixian spread the silk map on the grass.

The map is very detailed, and the situation of mountains and rivers is clear at a glance.There are also a lot of remarks written on it, a teeny-headed lowercase, with beautiful handwriting, and the word "seal" in the lower right corner.

Zhou Ben was stationed in Xiapi. He had been renovating the city and hoarding supplies before. He probably had several thousand soldiers under his command.

Shao Shude had a little impression of this man.

Back then when Yang Xingmi sent a boat division to aid Zhu Quanzhong, it was Zhou Ben who led the boat division.After several years, Zhou Ben is still leading the fleet south and north, doing the work of the captain of the transportation brigade.

"Wang Jingluo, Marquis of Yu, the capital of the Yi Cong army, led an army to conquer Suqian County, built a pontoon bridge over Surabaya, and searched for blacksmiths everywhere, trying to smelt iron chains and cut off the river. After Zhou Ben found out, he wanted to abandon Xiapi and go south to Qingkou. He also sent envoys to send a message to Yang Xingmi to capture it for me." Li Yixian briefly introduced the source of the information.

"How far is this place from Suqian?" Shao Shude asked.

"One day's journey, but Suqian is east of Surabaya." Xie Tong glanced at Shao Shude in surprise.

Shao Shude understood Xie Tong's meaning, laughed, and said, "Just like Yang Xingmi wanted to catch me, why don't I want to kill Xingmi? Huainan is like that, if Xingmi dies, if Zhu Yanshou, Tian Yu, and Yang Shihou are still alive , There is bound to be trouble. But there are tens of thousands of secret troops, and they seem to have some rules, and it is difficult to get rid of without tens of thousands of infantry. You have tried the Mountain Pulling Army, how about it?"

"If the Huai people dare to stay away from Bianshui, they will definitely be wiped out. What kind of skill is it to march under the protection of the boat division?" Yang Hongwang, the envoy of the Silver Spear Army, said unconvinced.

I did try, light and heavy cavalry harassed continuously, but the bandit army did not collapse.He dared not charge hard, they even had hundreds of vans, and they hid behind the fenders, shot with step bows and stabbed with spears, it was very difficult to deal with.The Bianshui River can also provide them with food, grass, arrows, and transport the wounded. Sometimes the boat division can also use a strong crossbow to assist the infantry in defending. It is as if Liu Yu marched along the Yellow River, resisting the cavalry harassment, and traveling thousands of miles westward. number.

These tens of thousands of people should be Yang Xingmi's old base.Destroy them, and there will be no more troops in the south.

"Don't be angry!" Shao Shude straightened his face and said, "Yang Xingmi still thinks that our cavalry bully people too much. In ancient times, the southern regime has been able to favor one side, and it has its own skills. What should be done is to study their strengths, find out The way to crack it, instead of babbling like a woman all day long."

"You will not be taught." Yang Hongwang turned pale, and apologized.

"Let's get back to business." Shao Shude cleared his throat and said, "The guide also said before that the rainy season will come at any time. Under the torrential rain, it will be difficult for the cavalry to move an inch. If the Huai army launches a counterattack at that time, the second army with silver guns and flying bears will be able to fight back." Can you stop it? Forget about your combat skills. You are all veterans, can't you see what Yang Xingmi is up to?"

"Make the most of your strengths and avoid your weaknesses, the military principle. Remember it. Don't fight with the enemy in the way they are good at. Remember." Shao Shude continued: "My cavalry comes and goes like the wind, so we should use this Advantage. Don’t get entangled with Yang Xingmi anymore, head east, go to Suqian, and kill Zhou Ben first. After the fight, if you still have time, you can come back and play with Yang Xingmi.”

"Your Highness has obtained the essence of cavalry in using troops." Xie Tong praised.

(End of this chapter)