Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 690
Above the surface of the Yellow River, the flames were blazing.

A large group of Liang Army navy warships were forced by the fire boats and had to retreat downstream.

Two unlucky ships were already on fire, and the sailors had no choice but to abandon the ship and flee.

On the decks of some ships, sailors hold long poles and forcefully resist the fire boat floating along the river, and sink after it burns out.

All in all a mess.

Dozens of warships, and more than a hundred transport ships, the massive rescue operation ended anticlimactically.

They didn't even enter the range of the crossbow, so they retreated in a hurry.Outside Zhongli City, the sergeants who had put on their armor and completed their formation returned to the barracks. The thieves couldn't get through, but they saved them from a fight.Of course, everyone also knows that the thief just failed in his first attempt, and he will definitely organize a larger-scale assault later, so he must be ready to fight at any time.

Shao Shude witnessed the whole incident at the head of Mengzhou City.

The full preparations in the early stage really worked, and his situation in this meeting was better than that of Li Guangbi.Li was approached by people, and at one point was about to burn the pontoon bridge. The south city he controlled was few soldiers, and he was still under siege. There were also enemies in the direction of the north city, so it could be said that he was surrounded on all sides.

I don't know what Huo Cun's mood was after witnessing this.

When he returned to the city, he met Wang Yao who came to say goodbye.

"The nephew has been calm and stable in recent years, and has made many achievements." Shao Shude looked at the fake nephew with a thin face and unshaven beard, and said, "Hit hard, I won't treat you badly."

"It's my nephew's duty to fight for my uncle." Whether it's true or false, Wang Yao's statement is still in place.

Over the years, all the money from Yanchi, Fenglingdu, and Pujinguan was taken away by Shao Shude and used to relocate the soldiers' families. After careful calculation, Wang Yao spent a lot of money.In addition, from time to time, additional food and draft animals were collected, and Raf was recruited, and Wang Yao took care of it all. I don't know how much internal pressure it put on.

"Is the town still peaceful?" Shao Shude asked again.

"Occasionally there are small changes, and they are suppressed." Wang Yao said it easily, but Shao Shude knew that things must not be that simple.

"If you need it, just open your mouth. Jinjiang still has soldiers, and they can go to Hezhong Mansion in a moment." Shao Shude said.

"Don't bother uncle for the time being." Wang Yao said hastily.

His reputation in the river was not very good. Brothers killed each other and lured wolves into the house. If he asked Xia Bing to help suppress and massacre the opponents in the town, it would really stink to the extreme.

In fact, he mainly relied on the more than ten thousand soldiers brought from Jiangzhou back then, and then he continued to reorganize, learned Shao Shude's methods, fought several times, and arranged the thorns in more dangerous places. After several battles, those who dared to make trouble Also less.

The current Hezhong Yajun must be dissatisfied with Wang Yao and even Shao Shude.But Wang Yao is not naive, he doesn't ask the soldiers to support him, in fact he can't do it, as long as they don't know they are against him.

Things are hard, every day counts.

"After the Luoyang camp is disbanded, the national defense army should go back to rest. The people you brought this time..." Shao Shude looked into Wang Yao's eyes and asked.

Wang Yao understood and said: "Most are old Yamen soldiers, newly recruited in recent years stay in Puzhou."

"That's good." Shao Shude said with a smile: "Let's go after lunch, it's not too late."

"I can't ask for it." Wang Yao said with a smile.

……

Huo Cun boarded the tower and looked at both sides of the river with anxious expression.

The number of summer thieves in the besieging city was not too many, but they dug three layers of trenches and built some garrison villages one after another, and the defense line became more and more stable.

The Xia people also recently launched a fierce attack, led by the bandit commander Shao Shude's pro-army Tielin army. After three consecutive days of attack, they broke into the north of the city for the first time and occupied the ferry terminal.

The navy was forced to retreat, and the Xia people immediately continued to build the pontoon bridge, intending to completely open up the three cities of Heyang.

Huo Cun felt a little regretful. He only sent people to burn the pontoon bridge, but did not dig out the iron man who fixed the pontoon bridge. Of course, this matter is more troublesome.

The pontoon bridge built by the Xia people still followed the old rules. The boats were connected with bamboo ties, and after reaching the bridge head, iron chains were used to connect several iron men buried deep underground. Unlike the Pujinguan pontoon bridge, iron rings and The chain is fixed.Perhaps, this is just a bridge they temporarily repaired, and it will be replaced with a new one later.

But no matter what, after the pontoon bridge was completed, the Xia bandits could avoid the harassment of Liang Jun's navy when the river thawed, and easily go south to Luoyang without detours. The significance is very huge.

Well, the prerequisite for achieving this effect is to capture Heyang South City.Because this city was built as a road, if you don't attack the city, you can only detour from the river beach next to it, and the traffic efficiency can be imagined.

Thinking of this, Huo Cun felt the meaning of their existence again.

"Grandpa, the disposal has been completed." Huo Yanwei went up to the tower and reported.

Huo Cun came back to his senses, looked at the adopted son who was covered in blood, sighed softly, and said, "Actually, this kind of people can't be killed endlessly."

Huo Yanwei hesitated to speak.

There was a Litongxia thief in the city. It was said that they were relatives of Su Junqing, the magistrate of the Heyang shogunate. After they were captured, the whole clan, all men, young and old, were executed, and the women were sent to the army to serve as camp prostitutes.

But the city has been besieged for more than two months. In the future, there will only be more and more people like this. Can they really be killed?
"However——" Huo Cun changed the subject and said, "The King of Liang has a great favor for me, and he personally appointed me as the envoy of the Baosheng army. If there is a slight setback, it is disheartening to be discouraged. Is there enough food and grass in the city? "

"It's still a month and a half." Huo Yanwei replied.

"Look at the arrangement." Huo Cun said expressionlessly.

Huo Yanwei was silent.

He knows what it means.There are some Heyang Yamen and Tutuan villagers in the city, and a considerable number of their families are in the city, so the food supply should be guaranteed.The family members of officials and generals must not run out of food, otherwise accidents will easily occur.Other than that, other people would not be given food if they could not be given food, and they could even be driven to attack the Xia bandits' trenches to die, so as to minimize food consumption.

This is a common method of Chao Jun, but not Liang Jun's style.In fact, most of the troops in the feudal towns, although brutal and brutal, still have basic military discipline.As the victors, Jin soldiers would be arrested and beheaded if they committed crimes in Youzhou. Although Li Keyong was angry, he admitted it with a pinch of his nose. .

But now—oh!Huo Yanwei can't do anything, his foster father doesn't want to surrender, so there is nothing he can do.

There was another shout of killing in the north of the city, which attracted the attention of the two of them.

It was the hundreds of elite soldiers they selected, who suddenly opened the city and attacked the ferry where the Xia bandits were guarding.

Arrows flew across the narrow battlefield, blades intersected, and life and blood flowed rapidly.

The Tielin army, it seems, is not able to fight as imagined, and cannot bear the title of the most powerful army of the Xia bandits.Huo Cun and his son had vicious eyes. After the previous battle, they had already seen that this army was mixed with old and new, and they could still touch it. This was the main factor for them to try to regain the ferry.

But after all, there are still many strong old men in the Xia Thieves formation. Under their leadership, the newcomers are not so easy to collapse.Therefore, after fighting for a long time, they were still unable to win the battle, and finally they could only retreat in defeat.

"Boom!" Huo Cun slammed his fist on the female wall, and angrily went down the tower.

……

In Yingzigu, the defense switch has just been completed.

The two thousand Heyang Tutuan villagers who were guarding the camp retreated, and they were replaced by more than a thousand Chishui Army soldiers, plus the newly arrived [-] Guozhou Tutuan soldiers.

Fan He perched high on the horse, and couldn't help smiling when he saw those Master Heyang who were expressionless and unhurried.

He watched these native soldiers grow up step by step with his own eyes.From the nervousness at the beginning, to the numbness of life and death later, to the calmness and calmness of the present, the two-month war with real knives and guns has changed a person almost from the beginning to the end.

Many of them are from stable Guanzhong. They are not very old. They have been used to digging ditches, clearing weeds, and sowing corn and wheat since they were young. They are too scared to speak when they see officials, let alone kill Killed.

Now, it's really different.Killing people, being killed by others, the cruel battlefield quickly urges people to grow up, and now they see a general like Fan He, and they won't even dare to look straight at him.After fighting a few more big battles, after a few years of hard work, it is estimated that an unruly and fierce temperament will also be cultivated.

What I want is a pack of tigers and wolves.A group of docile sheep can only be slaughtered, and it is not easy to recruit soldiers.If all the people in the Central Plains have such a fierce temperament, even if all the warriors are dead, and Hu people like Turks and Uyghurs enter the Central Plains, and the militia reunite, they can beat you to the ground on camels.

"Are the people of Liang still attacking these few days?" Fan He asked Wang He, the Envoy of Yingzigu Zhaizhai whom he had appointed.

Wang He is Wang Chong's younger brother. After the Yinshan Fan tribe dismissed him, he refused to go back, so he begged for nothing under Fan He's subordinates for an errand.

Wang He has no military position, but an official.Before the war, there was a loose title of Duwei Xuanjie, and after the war, after the war, he was awarded the title of Duwei Zhenwei.But this is useless, he is not rare, he still wants to join the army to fight for real wealth.After all, it's not his turn to inherit the family business of the Zangcai family in Mula Mountain, so why not come out and work hard?
"Not attacking, but still increasing troops." Wang He said.

Fan He looked around at the many camps and banners, and nodded.

There are very few people in these camps, and most of them are Tutuan villagers.For example, there are only [-] people in a certain village with the banner of Wang Yu of the Dingyuan Army, all of whom are Xiangyong from Yanxiang County, Guozhou.To put it bluntly, it is a lie!Create an assumption that there is a large army.Anyway, they had a lot of cavalry, and they went out every day to intercept the rangers of the bandit army, which greatly reduced the chance of them approaching for reconnaissance, which made Liang people confused and didn't know their true strength.

"Do you know how many thieves have come?" Fan He asked again.

"It's hard to say." Wang He hesitated, and said, "According to the news sent back by the scouts, there are still thousands of bandits in the area around the Revolving Gate Pass. Someone once crossed the Dalong Mountain and went to the Sishui and Heyin areas to investigate. Tan, it is estimated that there are no less than [-] Liang people stationed behind. This was news a few days ago, but how many are now, I don’t know.”

"Pang Shigu is in a dilemma, Zhu Quanzhong hesitates." Fan He sneered.

He could tell that the Liang people probably wanted to launch an offensive, maybe they would attack Heyang.But it is hard to say whether the Wei people will participate.

If Luo Hongxin is unwilling to send troops, or even refuses to use excuses, then this offensive will be out of the question.

Correspondingly, if it is impossible to attack Huaizhou from the direction of Weizhou, then if the Liang people want to take the initiative to attack, there are only three directions. One is the Revolving Gate Pass, the other is Yique Pass, and the third is Taigu Pass direction.

The latter two are actually not ideal, because they need to travel the mountain road to transport grain and grass, the cost is too high, and it is easy to be cut off.

Judging from the deployment of their troops, the initial plan should be to use the advantage of the navy to launch an offensive on both sides of the river.On Wei Bo's side, Liang Ren should still be making the last effort, right?
"It's time to hurry up!" Fan He got off his horse and turned to look west.

Xin'an County has fallen, and a lot of troops have been liberated. Now there is only one Heyang South City left, which is like a thorn in the back, which makes people very uncomfortable.After capturing this city, the situation on the entire battlefield will be greatly improved.

(End of this chapter)