Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 685 Stronghold
"Is Xu Erlang here?" Hu Zhen asked loudly, riding a war horse and building an arbor with his hands against the sun in the western sky.

There was a sound of chaotic footsteps on the wall of Xin'an City, and after a while, Xu Huaiyu in military uniform appeared on the top of the city.

"Hu Dalang, what are you doing here?" Xu Huaiyu asked expressionlessly.

"Today is Qi Fengguo's death day, could it be that Erlang has forgotten his old brother?" Hu Zhen said loudly.

Qi Fengguo is Zhu Quanzhong's Yuan Cong old man, and he belongs to the oldest group. Like Hu Zhen and Xu Huaiyu, he was more than 80 veteran subordinates when he was in the team in his early years.

"Qi Fengguo..." Xu Huaiyu was in a daze when he heard this familiar name.

In the battle of Chigang nine years ago, Liang Jun defeated Qin Zongquan, but during the fight, the bandits struggled to the death and once counterattacked, Qi Fengguo gave up his horse to Xu Huaiyu, and died in the battle.

Before that, in the battle of Bajiao Town, he attacked together with Xu Tang, but was defeated by Qin Zongquan, and Xu Tang died in battle.

"How did Qi Fengguo die? How did Xu Tang die? How many old brothers are there left?" Hu Zhen continued to ask.

"Brother Qi..." Xu Huaiyu sighed and said, "He died for me."

"No, you are wrong!" Hu Zhen roared: "Zhu Quanzhong only gave Brother Qi a thousand men to fight against the Cai bandits who counterattacked. Xu Tang also only had more than two thousand soldiers, who were surrounded in the stockade and died. Did not wait for rescue."

Xu Huaiyu was silent.

"After Li Keyong entered Jinyang, he rewarded the old man Yuancong arbitrarily. How many of these people died? Well, how many died, or were they attacked and killed by Zhu Quanzhong in Shangyuan Post." Hu Zhen also went all out, and the more he talked, the more Excited: "How many old Yuan Cong of Shao Shude died? How many old Yuan Cong of Yang Xingmi died?"

Xu Huaiyu looked up to the sky and sighed, and said: "Hu Zhen, I don't blame you for surrendering Shao Shude. People have their own ambitions, so don't persuade me."

"Xu Tang is dead, Qi Fengguo is dead, Wang Wu is dead..." Hu Zhen continued to roar, "Zhu Zhen was once too frightened to command an army. Zhu Yougong is the righteous son of Quan Zhong, and now he is also suspected. Li Di, Li Chongyin He was also a veteran in the era of King Huang, and I was beheaded by Quanzhong. Liu Kangyi and Guo Yannai, who went to Bian with Quanzhong for [-] yuan, also died. When these people died, did Zhu Quanzhong cry? Why did he die? With a Kou Yanqing and a Liu Han who doesn't know whether he is alive or dead, Zhu Quanzhong is going to cry in a fake way? We old brothers are not as good as these Bianliang youngsters? What's the reason?"

The sergeants on the tower looked at each other, all looking at Xu Huaiyu.Xu Huaiyu didn't respond at all, as if caught in reminiscence of the past.

In the chaotic battlefield, Qi Fengguo gave himself the horse with a free and easy face, let him take care of his family, and then rushed towards the bandit soldiers without hesitation.

"I'm sorry Brother Qi..." Xu Huaiyu covered his face and went down the tower.

Qi Fengguo's eldest son, in order to gain wealth, had already died in battle when he attacked Xuzhou.Xu Huaiyu has always blamed himself, thinking that he is an inferior official and cannot support Qi Fengguo's son, which led to this situation.

Hu Zhen burned paper outside the city tower, muttering words.

Liang Jun at the top of the city didn't dare to shoot him with an arrow, so he just looked at him stupidly.

When Xu Huaiyu was impassioned for the courage of the soldiers, everyone lived and died together.Now Xu Huaiyu is depressed and in a trance, and everyone feels that it is not very interesting, and suddenly feels very confused.

If you stay in the city, you will die!Sooner or later.

It is basically impossible to expect Bianzhou reinforcements to come to rescue, no one would have such absurd idea.

What should I do?Someone sat down on the female wall.The officer scolded twice, but he didn't bother to say any more, just let him go.

Wang Yu watched from a distance on the watchtower. Although he couldn't hear their conversation, he could generally guess a thing or two.

He sighed deeply.

After following King Xia for these years, he liked reading more and more.Even if he didn't know many characters, he insisted on letting the civil servant read to him.Over time, I gained a new understanding of many things.

pity!pity!
"It's like the dew in the morning. The past is bitter. I hate it!" Wang Yu coughed heavily, looking at the setting sun in the distance, feeling melancholy.

The soldiers of the Dingyuan Army have not attacked the city for two days.

They brought over a group of captives, all of whom were Xin'an defenders released by Xu Huaiyu before.They have not been abused, they have been working recently, and their food can be guaranteed.The Dingyuan army will take them to the city tomorrow, let them speak out, and further disintegrate the will of the defenders.

This fortress city is too difficult to crack, it is best to use this kind of soft method, so as not to hurt lives in vain.

In the distance, some sergeants came back from hunting woodcutters. They were operating nearer to Xin'an County, and the defenders in the city did not go out to attack. He remained motionless in the city, not even going out of the city to attack the woodcutters and scouts who went out to kill the enemy army.

There may be other ways to take down this city, but it may take a long time.

……

Outside the southern city of Heyang, a new batch of Tutuan folks arrived.

The two prefectures of Shanxi and Guozhou each selected [-] men who did not need spring plowing at home, and took a detour to Heyang with crude equipment.

Xin'an County can't do it, it's just so painful, no matter what, you have to take a detour.

To be honest, Xiangyong from Shaanxi and Guozhou counties has been practiced quite frequently in the past few years, and he has gradually become famous. At least the organization is much stronger than before.

Farmers and soldiers in the pre-Qin period were probably trained by military mobilization from generation to generation in this way.Well, the Guochao also has specimens, that is, Henan, which is full of disasters, and Hebei, which has always been committed to fighting the imperial court.

But their equipment is probably not as good as the peasants and soldiers in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. Most of them have no armor, and only a few wealthy families have equipped themselves with armor—not to mention that the people can’t hide armor privately. Too much.

The equipment made by the government is not enough for professional warriors, so it is impossible to give it to the Tutuan soldiers.For example, a good bow, people have practiced arrows for more than ten years, and they practice whenever they have time throughout the year. Isn't it much better than Tianshefu, who spends most of your time in the fields?Naturally, they must be used closely.

Tutuan countryman, cloth putou, cloth shirt, cloth hakama slave, and a cloth wipe forehead tied on the forehead, such a powerful equipment!

Fu Cunshen did not let these townships enter the trenches immediately, but assigned some military academies to train these people for a few days, and after they were familiar with the situation and rules, they were assigned to various trenches.

The war was about to start again, but the nail in Heyang Nancheng hadn't been pulled out yet, which made him a little anxious.

He walked up a high slope overlooking the entire river.

A lot of ships have been built in Mengzhou City, and they are all stacked on the shore at the moment.The craftsmen cut down the big logs in Wangwu Mountain, some of them were processed and piled up, and slowly dried in the shade in the shed, and some of them were urgently used to build ships.

The boat is not small, but it is not used to transport goods, but to repair the pontoon bridge between Zhongli City and Nancheng.

In fact, since last month, this work has slowly started.

The sergeants chiseled the ice with pickaxes, lowered the boats one by one, connected them with iron chains, and nailed thick planks.

The defenders in the city once rushed out and tried to destroy these pontoon bridges, but they suffered a big loss under carelessness: the ice surface was knocked into pieces, covered with thatch, and the beam was unprepared, and two or three hundred people fell Into the cold river, no more sound.

After suffering such a big loss, Liang Ren finally gave up.During the siege of the city for so many days, they also lost hundreds of people, and this time they were defrauded of more than 200 people, and their morale was severely damaged.

Then turn your attention to Zhongli City.

Many crossbows and artillery vehicles have been equipped.These equipments can only function in Zhongli City.The river is too wide, and the range of these weapons is so short that they cannot cover the entire river at all. They may still have some effect when they are deployed in Zhongli City. The center of the Yellow River is the dividing line between Yangwu County and Huojia County on the north bank. From Zhengzhou to Huojia, "the middle river is 96 miles". No crossbow could block the river, let alone a cannon cart with a range of only a fraction of the crossbow.

However, after the pontoon bridge is built, some small artillery vehicles can be deployed, but I don't know if they can withstand the shooting of the Liang Jun navy battleship.

The range of the cannon cart is really appalling!

On the other side of Zhongli City, there are still some people transporting heavy iron chains.There is no doubt that this is an attempt to tie the river across the river and block the river.

In order to prevent the Liang Jun navy from coming to help after the big river thawed, everyone tried their best.

Far away from the fire ship, a little closer, use a crossbow, and a little closer, use a cannon cart, and finally there are long giant wooden poles and iron cables to intercept.In short, we tried our best to stop the enemy army, prevent them from approaching Heyang South City, and rescue the defenders here.

In fact, some people have raised objections, thinking that it is better to let the Liang people rescue the Nancheng defenders.They ran away, and it happened to occupy the city here, so everyone would save trouble.However, it was rejected in the end. King Xia had an order that he must eat up the thousands of people from the Baosheng Army and not give them a chance to escape.

The last two strongholds of the Liang people were guarded by solitary troops, and if they could be allowed to escape, it would indeed be unreasonable.

Fu Cunshen turned around and took another look at the grain transport team that was slowly moving eastward.

These are the masters recruited by the Henan government, and they are transferring food, grass and equipment to the Chishui army.

They recently camped outside the revolving door.

There are banners and flags all over the mountain on Dagu Mountain, and the sound of golden drums can be heard everywhere. The Liang soldiers guarding the pass are terrified, and they keep calling Zhengzhou and even Bianzhou for emergency.

It is heard that Pang Shigu has returned with his troops, and the vanguard of more than [-] people has already entered the area of ​​the Xuanmen Pass.In order to avoid repeating the same mistakes and being cut into several sections by Xia Jun's intrusion, Liang Ren is constantly adding troops here.

Every day they send a large number of men to chisel the ice of the river near the south bank.Unexpectedly, the methods used by East and West Wei when they confronted each other back then were picked up by both sides, which makes people laugh and cry.

But no matter what, tens of thousands of Xia troops gathered in the areas of Huojia and Wuzhi, and the strength of the Liang army in the areas of Zheng and Meng was also increasing rapidly. It seems inevitable.

"Fuck!" Fu Cunshen spat, he had never heard that King Xia planned to fight the Liang people here.

(End of this chapter)