The rise of the prince

Chapter 870
Jing Guo's army just launched, Xia Guo's people were panicked, and many people started to run to Jing Guo's border.

Some people were planning to go west to avoid disaster, Jing Guo's troops were too strong, many people didn't think that Xia Guo could stop Jing Guo.

In Xiaguo Palace, Li Ji panicked and ordered conscription from all over the country to increase the number of troops. Regarding the increase of troops, Li Ji was almost crazy, to the point of ignoring the actual situation.

So in mid-April, before Jingguo's army arrived, civil strife broke out in various parts of Xiaguo, and the area under Helan Mountain rose up, almost breaking into Kyoto.

Fortunately, Li Yuanchang was decisive and sophisticated, and he used both twisting and soothing, and quickly quelled the turmoil.

But Jing Guo's army was still approaching the door.

This time is different from the past. If they were defeated in the past, Xia Guo still had the last way to run to the grasslands to preserve their strength. Their ancestors did do that.

At that time, the grassland was a mess, and they could defeat the local tribes and survive quickly by going north, but now that all the tribes in the grassland have been united under the banner of the Mongolian flag, if they dare to go north, they will die without a place to die.

There was a quarrel between the DPRK and China, and most of the civil servants felt that it was better to surrender to Jingguo, or they would die even worse if they went north and fell into the hands of the Tatars.

However, the emperor's uncle Li Yuanchang firmly disagreed, and assured the court that he would definitely block Jing Jun to the south.

According to Xia Guo's spies and informants, they only know that Jing Guo is increasing troops in two directions.

One is in the direction of Tanglong Town, and the troops in the border town will be increased.

With Tanglong Town as a nail, Xia Guo sent General Wei Mingling to lead the army eastward to resist the enemy coming from the direction of Tanglong Town.

Li Yuanchang, on the other hand, led his main force to march southward with Chaoshun Army and Shenyong Army to defend against the enemy from the south.

Because the previous intelligence was misleading, and Jingguo Dizhi's army was late, Li Xingzhou's army was still on the way, and the spies reported incompletely.

This caused Xia Guo to misjudge the overall situation. They believed that the enemy in the south and the camp in the west were all deployed, and Jing Guo's general Liu Ji led Jing Guo's main force to attack Xia.

Will continue to attack north from the direction of Yanzhou.

In the direction of Tanglong Town in the west, it is mainly containment and harassment, and should not be the main force. Even if there are many people, they are soldiers from Fuzhou, Taiyuan, Hezhong, and Yunzhou, not the elite of the Central Forbidden Army.

So it is more relaxed towards the west.

As for the river course, Xia Guo also paid special attention to it. It is well known that Jing Guo has a powerful and invincible navy.

Therefore, Li Yuanchang ordered that the states along the river collect private boats, gather them near the shallow water of Shikou, and scuttle them uniformly to block the river and prevent Jingguo boats from passing.

This matter is easier said than done. First, the collection of people's boats will encounter resistance. For generations, the people living by the river have relied on boats to support their families.

The second is that it is a big project to gather ships from all over the world, and it is very time-consuming. The person in charge of this matter is Wang Yuan, the new secretary of Xia Kingdom.

The project is huge, and the waterway is far away, the waterway is not in good condition, Jingguo is still going upstream, sailing is difficult, and the wind direction is not good for Jingjun at this time of year. Wang Yuan believes that this task can be completed very well.

However, this was just in case. In his heart, he didn't think that the people of Jingguo would go so far deep into the hinterland to attack the north.

As for the south side, because the waterway is no longer under their control, they can't fortify it, so Wang Yuan doesn't pay much attention to this matter, thinking that the king is in a hurry to go to the doctor, and there is already a panic, but in fact, it is not like this at all.

So I don't care too much about things.

150 miles west of Tanglong Town, Wei Mingling rode up the slope of the loess hill. From a distance, the army in the valley below was stretching eastward.

The infantry marched in the valley, separated by a slope, and on the other side was most of the cavalry.

"General, I see that he doesn't intend to raid Tanglong Town, maybe he can take it in one fell swoop." A deputy general beside him said.

Wei Mingling just shook his head, "Although there are many soldiers under my command, they are not elites, and the elites are all in the south. Besides, Jingguo is no longer the Jingguo of the past, do you really think there is an opportunity to take advantage of it?"

"This subordinate doesn't understand?" The lieutenant obviously didn't have a broad vision and couldn't see the changes in the overall situation.

Wei Mingling Gongjiu Township Bianguan, is a rare veteran of the Xia Kingdom, he explained slowly: "In the past, Jing Guo did not dare to do his best when he sent troops from Hedong. Among the sixteen prefectures of Youyun, Huanzhou, Shuozhou, Yingzhou, Weizhou Liaozhou and Yunzhou are both in the hands of the Liao State. If they use all their main forces in the east of the river, the Liao army will march westward for fifty miles from Shuozhou and Huanzhou, and it will take one day to reach Yanmen Pass. Do you think they dare to go westward with all their strength?
So in the past, it was not that the Hedong army had no courage, but that they had worries about the future.

This time it was different, Jingguo's emperor and grandson took back the sixteen prefectures of Youyun, with Yunzhou, Wuzhou, Xinzhou, Guizhou, and Confucian prefectures as barriers to the north, they had no threat from the north at all, and no worries.

If we rush into the war, we will definitely not be able to please. "

Wei Mingling said with a long sigh: "This time the emperor also panicked and forcibly recruited an army. Now Xia's army has exceeded 20, but the soldiers recruited in this way are lax in training, lack of weapons, and homesickness. Totally unbearable.

Don't look at the [-] troops under my command, if there is a real fight, only the original [-] frontier troops can fight.

Therefore, we cannot directly confront the Jing army, otherwise, once defeated, the whole army will be defeated. We can only build strong camps, set up obstacles, and block the attack layer by layer, so that the Jing army can take the initiative to attack. "

The lieutenant nodded after hearing this: "The commander-in-chief is brilliant."

"Oh, it's not clever, it's because of the situation. If I have elite soldiers in hand, I will also fight against Jing Guo! Who doesn't feel humiliated when he is so aggrieved and weak in battle."

In mid-April, Wei Mingling led an army to set up barriers and build fortifications on both sides of the road to the west of Tanglong Town, in order to prevent the enemy from advancing westward.

Zhe Weizhong and Yang Ye, who had increased their troops in Tanglong Town, also received the news, but apart from sending scouts westward to check the enemy's defense situation, they did not continue to move forward, nor did they send troops.

Because the edict sent by the imperial court has repeatedly emphasized that they should defend the bridgehead of Tanglong Town after increasing their troops.

Moreover, the scouts also found out that the opponent has at least 5 people, and their strength is 3000 people brought from Fuzhou by Zheweizhong, 5000 people brought by Yang Ye from Taiyuan, plus the three soldiers who originally guarded Tanglong Town. Thousands of defenders, there are only about 1000 people.

Fortunately, they brought forty cannons and 500 musketeers.

Yang Ye arranged forty cannons on the northern hillside, and behind Tanglong Town, he arranged [-] musketeers in the northwest of Tanglong Town to build fortifications and build the first defensive front.

And more soldiers were stationed in the city, and the cavalry was stationed on the top of the north slope, ready to support at any time, adopting a completely solid posture, not prepared to confront the enemy at all.

At the same time, Zhe Weizhong was responsible for preparing a large number of ships to meet the army and cross the river.

There are mainly two methods. One is to send two battalions of cavalry to go up and down along the river to requisition the boats of the people along the river.

The other is to use local materials and build them yourself.

Let's work together.

Letters also kept coming in. In mid-April, the army of Generalissimo Li Xingzhou had passed Taiyuan, Xianzhou, and Lanzhou and was heading towards Tanglong Town.

By the afternoon of April 21, the sergeants of Tanglong Town could already see the densely packed banners on the opposite bank across the river.

Yang Ye was still guarding, and Zhe Weizhong hurriedly crossed the river by boat to meet the emperor grandson.

The main force has arrived!

The war is about to start
(End of this chapter)