Chapter 863 Going North
Huainan soldiers want to run!
This was Xu Huang's first thought when he saw the Huainan soldiers on the west bank of the vortex retreating towards the fleet on the river.
Xu Huang's second thought was to pursue them quickly so that they could not retreat to Shouchun calmly.
But when he saw the enemy's crossbowmen waiting on the rampart again, Xu Huang's thoughts of pursuing the enemy disappeared.
This Huainan army is completely different from the ones they encountered before. It is very difficult to maintain a strict rear troops during retreat.
The enemy has such a rear-guard force, and even if he continues to pursue them, he won't achieve much success.
Thinking of this, Xu Huang became even more unwilling.
Victory without pursuit, retreat without chaos, there are not many elite soldiers like this in Jiangdong. If it can be annihilated here, what will be the difficulty in retrieving Shouchun later?
That's all, that's all, after all, it's a hard fight. But that's fine. If I don't fight hard, how can I make the children in the south stop crying after hearing about my reputation?
He thought so in his heart, but Xu Huang still took chances.
Just keep looking here to see if the enemy has any flaws.
But when the last batch of Huainan soldiers got on the ship, Xu Huang didn't find any chance.
Therefore, Xu Huang could only give up and let the cavalry ambushing nearby withdraw, and planned to station here to wait for the main infantry and bridging battalion heading south behind.
After all, the enemy soldiers have fled, but the barrier remains, saving you the trouble of repairing it yourself.
But at this time, Xu Huang was surprised to find that the enemy's boat division did not go south, but began to rock the oar and head north.
What's going on?
Instead of retreating, the enemy troops actually dared to go deeper?
But Xu Huang didn't need to work hard to figure it out. At this moment, he understood that the lost opportunity had floated back to his hands again.
But this time, he won't let go.
……
Xu Huang led more than a thousand cavalry to the north again. In order to catch up with the ships of the Huainan soldiers, the whole army did not get off their saddles, so they chewed dry food and chased towards the north.
In order to prevent the Huainan soldiers from discovering them, Xu Huang and the others did not dare to walk along the vortex, so they could only march farther away.
But this way, the journey becomes longer.
Just when Xu Huang was worried that he had not caught up with the Huainan soldiers, he was suddenly investigated by a sentinel cavalry, saying that the Huainan soldiers were stranded nearby and were constantly deploying troops towards the east bank of the Whirlpool River.
Xu Huang was shocked to hear the news and personally took more than ten cavalrymen there to check it out.
When he arrived, he saw hundreds of giant boats stranded on the vortex, and then he looked at the smoke and dust on the other side, and the flags went straight to the north.
Xu Huang hurriedly asked the soldiers to bring out the map for him. He rummaged through the map, clicked on a place, and asked the soldiers:
"Which army is there at Long Kang?"
These cavalrymen are responsible for conveying military information to the army and are very familiar with the situation of surrounding friendly forces.
One of the white-faced cavalry generals thought for a while and said to Xu Huang:
"Military leader, there are no troops of our army on the Longkang side, but according to the pace, the bridge-building battalion led by Captain Ren should have arrived there."
Xu Huang touched his long beard and fell into thinking.
From the situation of the Huainan soldiers, it is obvious that they must have a reason to go north, and they will not hesitate even if the fleet is stranded.
What is this reason? From the current point of view, Longkang is the closest to here on the east bank of Whirlpool. But what does Longkang have that allows the Huainan soldiers to spend such a large sum of money?
Since it’s not a thing, it must be a person.
Thinking of this, Xu Huang's eyes sparkled, and he suddenly thought of a possibility:
"It must be an enemy big shot trapped in Longkang."
When Xu Huang thought of this, he could no longer hold back the ecstasy in his heart and turned his horse's head back directly.
Now it is really Huang Tiangong who brings food to Nai Gong. If Nai Gong eats it badly, he will really feel sorry for Huang Tian.
After a while, Xu Huang returned to the cavalry and immediately ordered all the sentries and cavalry in the army to disperse, making sure to find a place where they could ford the whirlpool.
Huainan soldiers, you must wait for us!
Hahaha!
……
At this moment, six thousand elite Huainan soldiers were running toward Long Kang along the dirt road beside the swirling water.
Carrying small crimson flags on their backs, wearing red clothes and red armor, these elite warriors were like an invincible army of red ants, spreading across the entire riverbank with majestic momentum.
But the momentum is the momentum. If you look closely at the faces of these Huainan soldiers, you can see that in addition to being soiled, there is also a deep sense of confusion.
They really don't understand why they are here at this moment and why they must go to Longkang.
At this moment, under a canopy, Wu Jing, the prefect of Jiujiang, also had a painful expression on his face. He was sitting on a brown horse, looking at the horizon in the distance, but still did not see Longkang City.
After getting off the boat, Wu Jing's heart was filled with a thick haze, and his whole body felt like he was carrying a huge boulder, so depressed that he couldn't breathe.
And there seems to be only one reason for all this, and that is the stranding of the fleet.
He didn't expect that it was already February in spring, the Huai River had risen, and the water level in the Wu River was still shallow.
In fact, there was a severe drought in the Central Plains last year, and the riverbeds like Wushui were almost dry to the point of being exposed. Navigation is only possible now because of the rising water in spring.
The section along the Huaihe River is better. The further north you go, the shallower the water level becomes. Only light boats can pass there, but tall ships like those in Jiangdong cannot pass it anyway.
In fact, Wu Jing should have understood this when he saw the water level stone when he went out of the Huai River.
After all, the Huaihe River has risen, and stone carvings can still be seen, indicating that the water rise this time is actually very limited.
But it's too late to say anything now.
If they encountered this situation in normal times, they would only need to wait on the ship until the rainy season later. But now they are anxious to go to Longkang to rescue Sun Quan, how can they delay here.
Therefore, Wu Jing had no choice but to order to abandon the ship, go to Longkang first to rescue Sun Quan, and then return here to board the ship.
At that time, even if the fleet is temporarily stranded here, defense barriers can be built on both sides of the strait to protect the fleet.
But the opportunity was planned like this, and when Wu Jing came, he felt uneasy.
It wasn't until he saw the general pulling out a war horse from the building's cabin that Wu Jing realized how unsteady he was.
That is, there are more than six thousand Huainan soldiers in their army, but there are only a dozen of them with war horses. They are all high-ranking generals like themselves.
The rest, regardless of the level of force, are all on one leg.
Of course Wu Jing didn't think that walking slowly would delay the opportunity to rescue Sun Quan. He suddenly thought of an army.
It was the cavalry team that attacked them at the mouth of the vortex before.
Although Wu Jing didn't know how many people there were in this cavalry team, as long as there were four to five hundred cavalry, his side would suffer a big loss if they encountered them on this plain. Thinking of this, Wu Jing became more and more uneasy.
Worried about this, Wu Jing called Colonel Gao Rui over.
Gao Rui was the captain who was responsible for guarding the southeast wall at the mouth of the vortex. He was also known as a brave general in the army.
At this moment, Wu Jing called Gao Rui to ask him to take orders in the face of danger and set up sentries at the ferry crossings on the east bank of the Wo River. Once the enemy cavalry tried to cross the river, he, Gao Rui, must lead his troops to block the enemy troops on the other side. .
When Gao Rui listened to this order at first, he was a little reluctant. He tried to argue, but Wu Jing didn't want to directly pull out his whip and hit Gao Rui's helmet, and cursed:
"Gao Gouzi, do you really think I don't know what you did in Shaopi?"
When Gao Rui was spanked, a ferocious look appeared on his face, but when he heard Wu Jing's words again, his liver and gallbladder almost burst with fear.
It turns out that in order to seize the Shaopi paddy field, Gao Rui did something crazy.
That is, he used the construction of the moat in Shouchun as an excuse to directly introduce the water from the northeast section of Shaopi into Shouchun, directly causing tens of thousands of acres of paddy fields in the northeastern district to dry up.
At the same time, he colluded with the field officials there and asked them to hand over the rice according to the previous seven rents during the autumn harvest.
Therefore, the farmers who had no harvest had no choice but to abandon their land and continue to flee towards the Yuzhang area.
At this time, Gao Rui re-injected the water from the moat into the northeastern section of Shaopi, and the previously dry paddy fields became fertile farmland again.
Just as the water comes and goes, the field changes its owner.
What Wu Jing said at this moment made Gao Rui unable to hold his nerve anymore. He knew that if Sun Jian knew about his actions, even the lives of a whole clan would not be enough to kill him.
He knelt directly at Wu Jing's feet, kowtowed and begged for mercy.
Wu Jing naturally didn't want him to die, at least not in this way, so he relented and gave him a chance.
That means Gao Rui will die at the ferry. If the enemy cavalry rushes over, his clan in Wu County will probably suffer.
What can Gao Rui do at this time? Even though I know that there is a cup of poison in front of me, I can only drink it in one gulp!
In this way, Gao Rui waited there with thousands of elite soldiers, while Wu Jing continued to rush towards Longkang with the remaining five thousand infantry.
But even so, Wu Jing, who was riding a horse, was still scared, and from time to time he would have people sent out to look around to see if there were any traces of enemy cavalry.
But soon, these days of fear will be over, because the damn Longkang City is already on the horizon.
And thank God, their Jiangdong flag is still flying on Longkang City.
……
When Wu Jing's Huainan soldiers appeared five miles away from Longkang, Ren Jun, who was stationed outside the city, already knew about it.
Although he couldn't figure out where the reinforcements came from, Ren Jun still issued an order for the entire army to return to guard the camp wall.
As the trumpets tore through the wilderness, the children of Pei State who were originally deployed outside the city to attack the city began to retreat into the wall under the shouts of the Taishan army officers.
As a well-known civil engineering expert in the military, Ren Jun still built standard fortifications even when he was besieging an inconspicuous town.
There are a total of 5,000 people in the army, of which 1,000 craftsmen and 500 old Taishan troops are stationed in the middle base as Ren Jun's direct troops. The remaining 500 serve as military officials and form 4 groups with about 3,000 Pei Guo volunteers. The barriers are all surrounding the center base.
These five barriers are connected by trenches and together form the system's defense line.
This arrangement is also called the "Plum Blossom Array" because it resembles plum blossoms.
Now, Ren Jun's entire army retreated to such a plum blossom formation, observing the movements of the reinforcements.
Ren Jun himself even ran directly to the southwest barrier to go to the front line to see what these enemy troops were going to do.
……
Because Ren Junbu took the initiative to retreat, Wu Jing and other Jianghuai soldiers quickly arrived at Longkang City and successfully picked up Sun Quan and others.
Things had gone very smoothly up to this point. Wu Jing didn't feel angry except for blaming Sun Quan in a low voice for not notifying him.
Because Wu Jing himself knew that the person who really arranged all this must be his stubborn brother-in-law.
I also know that a pure warrior like Sun Jian still uses this method to train his children.
Therefore, Wu Jing did not really blame Sun Quan, especially when he learned that Sun Quan personally killed three thieves during the period when he was trapped in Longkang, he was even more relieved. He said directly:
"My foal has grown up."
But something went wrong later, that is, Sun Quan and the others had copied a piece of news from several prisoners, that is, the people surrounding them turned out to be the bridge-building camp of the Taishan Army going south.
When Sun Quan told Wu Jing this information, Wu Jing was in a dilemma.
He did not expect that this time the Taishan Army was not sniping at their Huainan soldiers heading north, but directly wanted to attack Shouchun in Huainan.
And you can understand with your toes why the Taishan Army left Pengcheng in the southeast and came to attack them in Shouchun.
In addition to sighing in his heart that there are capable people in Taishan's army, Wu Jing was immediately thinking about how to stop this.
In fact, after this Northern Expedition, Wu Jing realized the reality that his previous strategy of trying to conquer the Central Plains through the vortex to the north to supplement Jiangdong was unrealistic.
Just because the water in the northern section of Wo River is shallow, they can only go north after the rainy season in May, but not long after, they have to go back south in autumn when the water dries up.
In other words, they have twelve months in a year and only two to three months to really attack. This time is too limited.
And since the risk of taking the initiative is increasing, sticking to Huai River is the best choice at the moment.
But the problem is that because it was not expected that the Taishan Army would target Shouchun, the entire Jiangdong military force in this place is insufficient.
Therefore, in order for Sun Jian in the rear to have time to mobilize his troops and redistribute the force ratio of Jianghuai, Wu Jing must gain time first.
In this way, annihilating the Taishan Army's bridge camp in front of him here would be an extremely tempting thing for Wu Jing.
After all, the Taishan Army has no navy. If it wants to go south to the Huai River, it still has to build a bridge. As long as he annihilates this unit here, the Taishan Army will want to go south again, which will be in the second half of the year.
But the problem came again. What Wu Jing was most afraid of at the moment was the Taishan Army's sudden cavalry, and Gao Rui in the rear had no news yet, and he didn't know whether he had found the enemy cavalry.
As a result, Wu Jing hesitated between no news being good news and no news being bad news.
In the end, Wu Jing chose to throw a copper coin to decide whether to attack or leave.
……
After a while, Ren Jun, who was still watching on the wall, discovered that the enemy troops had retreated.
That's it?
(End of chapter)