Great Song Super Scholar

Chapter 618 The Battle of Bridge Building
In Hejian County, an urgent pigeon letter was sent to Fan Ning's desk. The pigeon letter was sent by Yang Gui in Youzhou, reporting the latest situation in Youzhou to Song Jun.

Fan Ning looked at the information and smiled slightly at Di Qing: "The Liao Kingdom issued a reward order for the purchase of ships, what does Shuai Di think?"

Di Qing said indifferently: "It explains three problems. One is that Wanyan Hongji is very aware of the plight of the Eastern Route Army, and he is eager to rescue them. The second problem is that the Liao government does not have ships, but the people have ships. The Liao Army hopes to take The boats from the people are collected, and the third question is that Yi County is safe and sound, otherwise Yelu Hongji will use Yi County’s Song army to exchange with us.”

Fan Ning nodded, and then asked the judge next to him, Zhang Wei, "What do you think, sir?"

Zhang Yi bowed slightly, "I agree with Di Qing's opinion, but I would like to add that it seems that the Liao Army has not yet decided to solve the problem through negotiations."

"Why don't you want to negotiate?"

"Maybe it's because I can't let go of face, or maybe the Emperor Liao hasn't realized the seriousness of the problem. He thinks that the Liao Army can solve the current plight of the Eastern Route Army."

Fan Ning took two steps with his hands behind his back and said, "You mean, they are sure to break through the blockade of the Song army's warships on Baigou?"

"Xiaozhi thinks it can be understood from two aspects. On the one hand, what Xianggong said, they feel that they are sure to break through the blockade of the Song army's warships. On the other hand, they want to exchange the Song army prisoners of war in Yi County for the Eastern Route Army. "

Fan Ning pondered for a long time. Seeing Liu Kui standing beside him hesitated to speak, he asked with a smile, "Does Liu Canjun have any suggestions?"

Liu Kui bowed and said, "I suggest sending out cavalry boats. We can send scouts to the north bank at any time to detect the movement of the Liao army. In this way, we can know in advance which direction they cross the river from."

A cavalry ship is a large ship that can carry cavalry, usually a warship of at least five thousand shi. The Song army has many, but there are none on Baigou. Fan Ning nodded, "It can be adopted!"

He said to everyone: "Now the target of the Eastern Route Army is also very clear. They will be stationed on the south bank of Baigou, and they will no longer run around. They will stick to their little food and wait for rescue. This shows that they and Yelu Hongji's They have a close relationship, and it is estimated that they sent people to swim across the river. This is the key reason why Yelu Hongji is in control of the situation. What we need to do now is to increase intelligence input and increase the number of ships on Baigou. The river is completely blocked, and even the reporter cannot get through."

Fan Ning made the latest deployment. On the basis of the original 250 warships blocking Baigou, he invested another [-] thousand stone warships, bringing the number of warships on Baigou to [-], and invested another five Qianshi's cavalry ship, each carrying fifty cavalry, [-] cavalry landed on the north bank of Baigou, divided into five teams and went north to investigate the situation of the main force of the Liao army.

Three days later, the warships of the Song Army on Baigou got the news that one hundred thousand Liao troops were marching towards the north bank of Baxian County, accompanied by Yelu Hongji's car, which was personally conscripted by the Liao Emperor.

At the same time, the Liao army collected more than 100 small boats from the various rivers of Nanjing Road and were heading towards Baigou from the four rivers. The [-] warships of the Song army also quickly assembled near Ba County, ready to attack the Liao army. The army crossed the river.

The [-] Liao troops arrived at the north bank of the Juma River two days later. The army set up a company battalion tens of miles long on the north bank. A hundred small boats did not dare to enter the Juma River, and were directly transported by the army by land.

Yelu Hongji marched in person, riding a horse to patrol the north bank, surrounded by hundreds of guards to protect him, Yelu Hongji looked at the vast white river, and the warships of the Song army could be clearly seen on the river, Yelu Hongji sighed secretly, the Song army never They were all fighting against the Liao army. This time they somehow came to their senses and knew to use warships to block the Juma River. The Liao army relied too much on cavalry and did not pay attention to water warfare. This time they suffered a lot.

At this time, there was a rumbling sound behind him, and when Yelu Hongji turned his head, he saw a huge flatbed cart pulled by a dozen bulls, on which were placed two small boats, which made Yelu Hongji frowned. Are you afraid of Song Jun to this extent?Even the ships had to be pulled over by land.

Yelu Chongguang, Minister of the Ministry of War accompanying Yelu Hongji, suddenly said, "Your Majesty, why do you have to use a boat as a base instead of a wooden raft? We use giant wooden nails to make wooden rafts and connect them in the water. Isn't that also a pontoon bridge? There is no need to collect ships everywhere."

Yelu Hongji also felt that it made sense, he turned his head and asked Yelu Wende, "Is this feasible?"

Yelv Wende bowed and said: "Your Majesty, I have also considered the method of rowing rafts, because the rafts are relatively shallow, and the river can easily overflow the floating bridge. It is no problem for people to cross the floating bridge, but war horses are easily frightened, and they will not move forward when they touch the water. .”

Yelu Chongguang reacted very quickly. He rolled his eyes and said again: "Since the raft is too shallow, let's make a big wooden box as high as the boat. Then there should be no problem."

Yelu Hongji looked at Yelu Wende again, Yelu Wende smiled wryly and said: "It is better to use a large leather raft than to use a wooden box, Chong Guang Shangshu, the problem is not what tools to cross the river, but what should we use to compete with the warships of the Song army? "

Yelu Hongji was a little annoyed, he snorted heavily, "Neither left nor right, so what use are you civil and military ministers?"

Yelu Chongguang shook his head and said to Yelu Wende: "You have offended Your Majesty! Your Majesty's personal conquest is to take action, but you always say no, and you can't come up with one." A good way, His Majesty will be angry of course, in my opinion, act first and talk later, if you fail a few times, you will always find a way to succeed."

After speaking, Yelu Chongguang also walked away quickly, leaving Yelu Wende alone on the spot.

At this time, a general said: "General, I have some ideas about being humble."

Yelv Wende regained his energy, and quickly said: "Tell me, is there any good way?"

"General, we built the pontoon bridge for two purposes. One is to bring back the Eastern Route Army on the other side, and the other is to send them wood. In fact, there is no need to consider the issue of cavalry."

"no!"

Yelv Wende immediately rejected this suggestion, "Why don't you consider the cavalry? Do you want them to lose tens of thousands of horses and flee back?"

Another general said: "It's not bad to build a pontoon bridge with wooden boxes. At least we can add them at any time. Then lock the wooden boxes with iron chains and put some sharp wooden stakes on the wooden boxes. Song army warships may not dare to hit them directly."

Another general said: "Soldiers bring more sand. The Song army will attack with kerosene. We will bury it with sand at any time. We are deploying crossbow troops to fight against the Song army."

Another general said: "Pile some more big logs in front of the pontoon, so that the Song Army warships can't hit the pontoon directly, and maybe they will capsize."

Everyone said something to me, and a plan was gradually formed.

Yelu Wende immediately ordered thousands of craftsmen to make large wooden boxes. Overnight, the craftsmen built thousands of large wooden boxes, and installed pickets on both sides of the wooden boxes. The large wooden boxes were in groups of ten, and the boxes were tied together with iron chains. connected together.

But the severe test is how to install these floating bridges. It is impossible for the Song army to wait for them to install before attacking, let alone allow them to deploy calmly.

Even their first steps are difficult to complete.

The first step in installing the pontoon bridge is to pull two long cables between the north bank and Jiangxinzhou to fix the pontoon bridge on the river. It is like a girder for building a house. Without the support of the girder, the roof is easy to collapse. The same is true for building a pontoon bridge. Without the two long cables anchored, the pontoon bridge would not be stable on the water and would soon be washed away by the river.

Of course, there is another way, which is to drive wooden piles in the water. Wooden piles can be laid near the bank of the Juma River, but the water in the center of the river is too deep, and the current at the bottom of the river is very fast, so it is difficult to drive piles, so they use a leash Method.

A few soldiers had just arrived at Jiangxin Island holding the rope, when a large ship came rushing in. Arrows were fired in disorder on the ship. Several soldiers had nowhere to hide, and they were killed by arrows. The leash scheme was a total failure.

But the arrows had already been wound up and they could not stop firing. The Liao army failed to pull the rope, so they had to switch to pile driving. After fixing the first section of the large wooden box, the middle part was fixed by soldiers rowing boats to assist. The rooms are connected by iron chains, which can deform the pontoon at most and prevent it from being washed away easily.

It took only an hour for the soldiers of the Liao army to lay two rows of 120 wooden piles at a distance of [-] feet along the coast, and lay [-] large boxes.

Seeing that the piling was effective, Yelu Hongji ordered immediately, "Continue piling!"

Hundreds of soldiers continued to drive piles in front of the wooden box. They used pine logs several feet long, with one end sharpened, and inserted them deep into the mud at the bottom of the river. .

To the surprise of the Liao army, wooden piles could be laid in the middle of the river. This discovery greatly inspired the Liao army and accelerated the speed of piling. In the morning of the next day, a mile-long pontoon bridge had already connected the north bank and the river. Jiang Xinzhou connected.

(End of this chapter)