Poor Family 1

  Chapter 818 Flaws discovered

As the commander in chief, he was of course the first one to get up and report, "His Royal Highness, the Xiang army from Yangzhou has been transferred to Jiangning Mansion. Now Jiangdu City is empty and there are no soldiers stationed. Why don't we send troops to capture Jiangdu and capture Li Yanqing alive? Your Highness, this is an opportunity, don't miss it!"

   "No way!"

Liu Yanqing got up and said: "We have an advantage in defense now. We not only have the naval blockade on the Yangtze River, but also the geographical advantage on the south bank of the Yangtze River. If we go north, we will have no retreat, and it is very easy to cause the entire army to be wiped out. Please think twice, commander! "

Xiang Fa was very dissatisfied and said: "If our entire army is to be wiped out, the other party must have an army. Now that Yangzhou has no soldiers, and Jiangdu is an empty city, Li Yanqing can at most transfer one thousand troops from Chuzhou. Can we destroy our entire army?"

   At this time, Xiang Zongliang waved his hand, and sighed: "Xiang Shuai's plan itself is good, but unfortunately I have already missed the good opportunity."

Seeing that everyone was puzzled, he said again: "Li Yanqing dismissed Wu Zhuo under the pretext of taking stolen goods, and let people pretend to be enemies to kill Wu Zhuo and his son. Everyone thought that Li Yanqing was avenging his own personal revenge, because Wu Zhuo's son had offended Li Yanqing before. Even I think so, but now it seems that this is just a cover-up by Li Yanqing. He deceived us first, making us think that he was just venting his personal grievances and didn't find out about Jiang Ning's gathering of troops. Thousands of troops quickly assembled in Yangzhou, and I just got the news that ten thousand troops have arrived in Jiangdu, so I realized that I was fooled and missed Li Yanqing's opportunity to be in the empty city of Jiangdu."

   "Has Li Yanqing's army arrived in Jiangdu?" Everyone was surprised.

Xiang Zongliang nodded, "Not only 10,000 troops have arrived in Jiangdu, but also the three Ruan brothers from Chuzhou have joined Li Yanqing. They have a thousand sailors and more than two hundred warships in their hands. That's why I came to the barracks. , Everyone, get ready for battle."

After saying a few words to Zongliang, he left in a hurry, saw off his second uncle, and Xiang Fa sat back in the commander's seat. He glanced at the generals in the big tent, and said slowly: "His Royal Highness just told me that although the troops are not strong enough, Many, the army has not yet been assembled, and we will not attack south for a while, but our defense must be done well, General Lei!"

Immediately stood up one of the generals. This man was the commander of the navy, Lei De. He was once a well-known water thief in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. , Promised him to be the Duke of the county and named a general, so that Lei De led the crowd to surrender.

At present, Lei De has 3,000 sailors and hundreds of large and small warships. Since the Song Dynasty's navy was transferred to the Yellow River, and the warships were all captured by the Jin soldiers, there were no tigers in the mountains, and monkeys dominated. It is already the largest navy on the Yangtze River.

  Red came out, bowed and saluted, "Humble job!"

  Xiang Fa nodded, "Although Li Yanqing won't attack for the time being, we must prevent him from making a sneak attack. If the other party makes a sneak attack, it will most likely be targeting the navy, so you have to be extra careful."

   "The humble job understands, and the humble job will send more people to patrol the water village!"

The water village of Jiangning Mansion is located on the bank of the Yangtze River outside the city. This water village was built when the imperial court suppressed the Fangla rebellion. There were thousands of naval warships at that time, making the water village occupy a huge area, and the length of the coast was more than a dozen. In the village, dense wooden piles are laid all around, and it is difficult for ordinary small boats to enter.

  However, Red had only a few hundred ships, and the water fortress was too big for him to use, and it was difficult to guard against it. So Red used wooden stakes to separate the water fortress into two sections, and he only used half of it.

  The water stronghold is mainly used to store warships, but there is still a dry stronghold on the shore, which is the place where soldiers are stationed, and three thousand sailor soldiers are stationed on the shore.

  At night, the river laps against the embankment, and a waning moon appears and disappears in the dark clouds. The surface of the river is pitch black, and occasionally there are dark silver waves of light. There are patrol boats passing by from time to time in the water village, and the security is very strict.

At this time, beside the wooden fence outside the water village, there were two dark shadows faintly. They were two people wearing black water jackets. Their heads were exposed on the water. A patrol boat sailed in front of them, and the two immediately sank into the water. There were only two thin reed pipes on the water surface, which were close to the wooden fence. These two reed pipes were too thin, let alone blocked by the wooden fence. It's also hard to spot in front of your eyes.

The patrol fleet quickly passed in front of them. When the fleet was far away, the two spies slowly showed their heads and looked at each other with surprise in their eyes. Tonight's patrol was obviously stronger than yesterday. Did Red discover something wrong?

  At this time, one spy pointed to the southwest corner, and another person understood. They found a small defensive loophole yesterday, but the loophole is still there today, which shows that the other side really ignored it.

  The two immediately dived into the water and swam to the depths of the Yangtze River. Soon, they boarded the corresponding boat, which turned around and sailed to the opposite bank.

  In the military yamen, Li Yanqing frowned after listening to the reports of the two spies, "You mean the other party has suddenly stepped up their vigilance?"

   "Qi Taiwei, we found that the other party didn't have so many patrol ships during the day, but suddenly doubled at night."

   "Could it be that the defense was specially increased at night?" Ruan Xiaoer asked next to him.

  The lead spy shook his head, "Yesterday's patrol was the same as today's during the day, but at dusk, the number of patrol ships suddenly doubled, as if they had heard some news."

  Li Yanqing pondered for a while, and asked Zhang Shun, "Is there any news about the navy in Ezhou?"

  Zhang Shun said cautiously: "It takes four or five days for the fastest boat to go from us to Ezhou. I guess they only received the order to dispatch troops today. I feel that the problem should not be with Ezhou."

  At this time, Ruan Xiaowu said: "It should be that the other party has spies in Yangzhou. When our ship arrived in Jiangdu, the other party must know about it. They are afraid of our sneak attack, so they stepped up their guard."

  Li Yanqing also felt that what Ruan Xiaowu said was reasonable, it should be the case.

  He thought for a while and asked again: "You are all heroes in the water. If you attack the water village, what do you think is the biggest difficulty?"

  Zhang Shun knew Li Yanqing better, and asked, "Dutong's sneak attack refers to fire attack?"

  Li Yanqing nodded, "I really mean Huo Gong."

  Ruan Xiaoer pondered for a while and said: "The opponent's defense is so tight, the biggest trouble is probably how to transport the fire igniter into the water fortress. If he breaks through forcefully, the opponent's water fortress is too big, and the effect will not be too great."

  At this time, the two spies looked at each other, and the lead spies said: "We also found a flaw in the other party, which may be beneficial to Huo Gong."

  Li Yanqing was overjoyed, there was actually a loophole, he hurriedly said: "Quickly tell me, what loophole did you find?"

The flaw discovered by the two spies is located in the southwest corner, where dozens of thousand-stone warships are parked. Red’s flaw is that these dozens of thousand-stone warships are too close to the fence of the water village, only a few hundred steps away, although a few hundred are not It's not that close, there's still a little distance, but compared to the distance of several miles, it's not worth mentioning.

The reason for this flaw was not that Reid was inexperienced, but because of hydrological constraints. Generally, Qianshi warships would be parked in the river, but because of the lack of troops, Reid was unable to make a large-scale alert, so he parked all the ships on the shore. , In this way, not only the patrols in the water can observe the defense, but also the patrols on the shore can also take care of it, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

But there are gains and losses. Because the draft of these dozens of thousand-stone warships is relatively deep, the water level in other places is slightly shallow, which may easily cause the ships to run aground. However, only the waters in the southwest corner are relatively deep and can dock the thousand-stone warships. It's closer to the fence.

  Reid actually knew about this flaw, but decided to take advantage of both sides, and decided to dock all the ships. As for this flaw, he decided to solve it by strengthening the sentry.

  He placed three fixed watch boats within a distance of several hundred steps, with a total of twenty people, constantly monitoring the perimeter of the fence day and night.

It's the second watch of the night again. Compared with the moonlight that flickered yesterday, the moonlight tonight is not bad. The moon is bright and the stars are sparse. The whole water village is covered with a layer of silver, and there are dots of shimmering light on the water surface. , more than 30 sentry boats patrolled back and forth in the water stronghold, and hundreds of sentinels were also patrolling back and forth on the shore.

  At this moment, a rapid alarm bell sounded suddenly from the easternmost fence, ‘Dang! when! when! ’ The alarm bell rang sharply, and several fire boats suddenly appeared on the river, rushing towards the easternmost fence.

  All the soldiers rushed to the east one after another. The fixed sentry ships in the southwest corner couldn't bear it anymore. They sailed away from their posts and went to the east for support. The sentries on the shore had already rushed to the east.

As soon as the sentries had withdrawn, three small boats appeared silently outside the fence. Some of their soldiers cut through the fence, and the three small boats loaded with kerosene entered the water village, and quickly moved towards the Qianshi warship a few hundred steps away. rush away.

  (end of this chapter)