Fu Song

Chapter 720 Hit head on an iron plate

The Jianghuai Theater is Yeluzhen's main direction of attack. The 30 Liao army has concentrated 18 in this direction, and together with the nearly [-] troops of Liu Yu of Qi State, Yeluzhen's military advantage is extremely obvious.

Whether it is the navy or the army, the Liao people have the upper hand, and their only weakness is that they are above the navy.

But above the Huaihe River Basin, this weakness is actually not that big, because the large warships of the Song Dynasty across the Yangtze River are not free to use in this dense water network, but are the four-wheeled warships of the Liao Kingdom. There is nothing wrong with the lead ship of the wheel set.

In this way, everyone's combat effectiveness is not much different.

It's just that the sailors of the Song Dynasty have stronger personal combat effectiveness.

As for General Gao Yingxiang of the Song Dynasty in the Jianghuai theater, there were only more than 8 troops in total.

Occupying cities, passes, and strategic points, will definitely be Gao Yingxiang's best choice.

The Song people would not be so stupid as to run out of the city to fight the Liao people.

As for attacking strongholds, it is a headache for any army.

Therefore, this glorious task was naturally entrusted to King Qi Liuyu.

Of course, in order to enhance the combat effectiveness of the Qi army, Yeluzhen also generously sent [-] to [-] cavalry to cooperate with the Qi army.

These cavalry, rather than coming to fight with the Qi army, might as well say they came to supervise the work.

Yeluzhen's strategy was called Leapfrog Tactics.

Specifically, their offensive line is not to remove the key points step by step, and then move forward after all worries are relieved. Instead, they boldly leap forward, cross many fortified cities and dangerous passes, and attack those The Song army launched an attack on an unimportant small town hidden in the rear.

This style of play can only be done when you have an absolute advantage in the entire battlefield, otherwise it is really a meat bun beating a dog, and there will be no return.

What Lu Yuan didn't figure out for a while was because the main cavalry of the Liao Kingdom were wandering around the larger passes on the left and right sides of Yicheng. That would end badly.

When such unimportant small towns without heavy defenses are captured by the Liao army one by one, the front lines of the Liao army will intersect with those of the Song army. At this time, the Song army will use the advantage of the navy to quickly mobilize troops. The plan is about to fail.

When this goal is achieved, those big cities are very likely to become isolated cities.

Yeluzhen concentrated her strength to attack again. Should the Song army in other places be rescued or not?

The current commander-in-chief of the Song Army, whether it is Lu Wenhuan or Gao Yingxiang, has not realized this yet.

Yeluzhen is planning to turn the entire Jianghuai theater into a chaotic arena, a pot of gruel.

With the scuffle together, Yeluzhen can firmly gain the upper hand.

Of course, the small cities that were attacked first were all carefully selected. If you put them on the map and distinguish them carefully, you can see that the surrounding areas of these small cities, without exception, are the main defensive forces of the Song Army .

Although the small town is small, it is the main point connecting the surrounding main forces.

Once it is cut off, it is like placing a stone in the middle of an unobstructed avenue. It does not seem to affect the traffic, but if you are not careful, you will easily trip over it.

Of course, such an offensive method did not care about the casualties of the Qi army at all.

For Yeluzhen, this is something that does not need to be considered.

As for Liu Yu, he had no choice.

In the past, he could still negotiate conditions with the Liao State and show off, but that was because the Liao State still relied on him to curb the northward expansion of Song State's power.

But now, the Liao Kingdom is attacking with all the strength of the whole country, and Liu Yu's value is only left as a pawn. If he talks to the master of the Liao Kingdom, the people of the Liao Kingdom may immediately change to a more obedient one. people come up.

This is not without precedent.

Just look at Cui Ang, whose grass on the grave is taller than a person, and you can understand it.

This time, the Liao people are determined to win, and they will not tolerate anyone hindering their actions, and will never tolerate anyone's passive sabotage.

It is said outside Dusheng that the Empress Dowager has arrived at Nanjing Road,
In fact, Empress Dowager Xiao Chuo not only came to Nanjing Daoxijin Mansion, but now she is sitting in Hebei Daoming Mansion, watching the great battle!

Let go of everything in the country and come to the Daming Mansion to personally supervise the war, and even hand over the power of supervising the country to the emperor Yeluxian who has not yet taken charge of the government, which shows that the Empress Dowager Chengtian attaches great importance to this Southern Expedition.

Nearly [-] Qi troops, apart from Liu Yu's pro-military forces, almost the rest of the army attacked to the place designated by Yeluzhen, and attacked in an all-round way in the vast theater.

Yicheng is one of the goals.

General Pan Tao of the Qi Army led [-] cavalry into two groups and launched a surprise attack on Yicheng.

Pan Tao really didn't pay attention to a small town guarded by thousands of people.

Only when he approached the city and saw the lonely mountain outside the city did he realize that things were far from as simple as he thought.

According to the previous information, this lonely mountain should be covered with lush trees, and these trees can also be used to make siege equipment when they attack Yicheng.

But now, those trees are all gone.

Instead, there are stone walls and stone castles standing high on the mountain.

Now Gushan and Yicheng are the horns of each other, if you fight against Gushan, Yicheng can cover you, if you fight against Yicheng, Gushan is also an obstacle.

The difficulty of the attack instantly increased countless times.

Could it be that the guard general of the Song army in Yicheng has the ability to predict the future?Otherwise, how could such a small town in the rear have become like this?

Of course he didn't know that Lu Yuan was from Xiangyang, and he had participated in the Liao army's attack on Xiangyang, so he had a deep impression of the mutual assistance model between Xiangyang and Fanyang.

"If you want to go down to Yicheng, you must first take Gushan!"

In an instant, Pan Tao had made a decision.

The Qi army was divided into two, the main force and the cavalry circled to the other direction of Yicheng, but about one-third of the people stayed behind, preparing to attack Gushan.

There are only a thousand people in Yicheng, and there are definitely not many people guarding Gushan.

Judging by the size of the stone castle on the mountain, there are only about two or three hundred people.

I left nearly 3000 people to attack, and even if there were any moths, I would definitely be able to bear it.

In fact, he had no room or board.

Because the isolated mountain is surrounded by water on three sides, but because of the terrain, the boats can't get close together. There is only one offensive surface, and this surface is completely exposed to Yicheng.As for Yicheng itself, surrounded by water on two sides, one side is facing Yicheng, and the other side is a tidal wetland. The troops that can be deployed are extremely limited, and the threat is not great.

Therefore, attacking Gushan is tantamount to attacking Yicheng, and attacking Yicheng is also tantamount to attacking Gushan.

Fan Zhong and these peasants are young and strong, so naturally they can't be idle in the city.

Because Fan Zhong was strong, he was assigned to carry things to the city. Suo Chao gave him a helmet to put on his head. He was so frightened that he sat down on the ground, then hugged his head, kicked his buttocks, and kicked his legs alternately on the ground. In a blink of an eye, he turned himself in one direction and squirmed like a bug at an extremely fast speed. behind the parapet.

After a while, there was another loud noise, but this time he was on guard, and he was not as lost as before. He first sat up against the wall, and then turned over, holding the female wall with both hands, a little Standing up little by little, half of his head was exposed from the top of the parapet, looking out of the city.

Seeing this, his eyes couldn't help but straighten, and then retracted with a whoosh.He opened his mouth wide and gasped desperately, like a fish thrown ashore.

The third loud noise seemed to blow Fan Zhong's soul back, and he climbed up the parapet wall again and stood up.

On the slope of the opposite lonely mountain, the corpses of the Qi army were covered layer by layer. The blood stained the yellow land red, and then the blood merged into streams, flowing down the mountain.

Fan Zhong knew how many murderous intentions were hidden on that seemingly flat hillside, and now those traps were probably filled with corpses.

What you can see is only a small part.

Then, he saw a loud noise coming from the lonely mountain in the distance, and a cloud of smoke rose, and then Fan Zhong clearly saw a ball of fire flying out of the smoke, and the fire ball fell on the city wall. In the distance, they kept jumping and jumping up, and then those infantrymen and horses of the Qi army who were running towards the city all fell to the ground.

Just at this moment, I'm afraid that dozens of people have fallen to the ground.

Just as he was speechless, there was a sudden pain on his buttocks, and a roar came from his ear: "Fan Zhong, where is the crossbow arrow you carried? Didn't see the crossbow machine over there, is it out of arrows?"

Looking back, he saw Suo Chao glaring at him angrily, and Suo Chao was carrying a bundle of arrows on his shoulder.

"Let's go, let's go!" Fan Zhong clutched his butt, trotted to the arrow bundle he had thrown away, picked up the bundle of arrows with one hand and carried it on his shoulder, watching Suo Chao's eyelids for a while Jump, this bundle of crossbow arrows weighs more than a hundred catties.

In Xuzhou, Gao Yingxiang, the general of Xingyuan in the east of the Song Dynasty, stood in front of the huge sand table with his arms folded and stared at the sand table.

Mountains, rivers, and city roads are clear and clear.

And one flag after another clearly shows the enemy and the enemy.

What is different from the clear distinction between the enemy and us in the past is that now the flags of the enemy and us are intertwined, and it is true that there is me in you, and you in me.

Yeluzhen's style of play was beyond Gao Yingxiang's expectation.

Within half a month, as many as nine places were attacked in the entire Jianghuai theater, and none of these nine places was a key defense of the Song army, and they were all small towns.Most of them have only a few hundred to more than a thousand people defending, the purpose is only to defend some river mouths or traffic nodes.

"Out of the nine defensive points, only Yicheng not only defended it, but also caused a lot of damage to the enemy." Li Yan pointed to the map and said, "This time, our Commander Lu is going to be proud. The defender of Yicheng, Lu Yuan, is him. Veterans under your command! This time, our Yunnan-Guizhou army did not perform very well. There were three generals who did not fight at all and led their troops away. General, do you want to enforce the military law?"

Gao Yingxiang shook his head: "No need, Yicheng is somewhat different from these places. Yicheng has a foundation to defend, and it is extremely difficult to defend other places. This time, we did not expect the enemy's style of play this time. It is ours. The main responsibility for the misstep lies with us, not the grassroots troops. Yicheng fought well, and naturally it was a reward, and it was played to the imperial court, and Lu Yuan was promoted to be in charge."

"Understood!"

"Don't make unnecessary sacrifices, that's what Shoufu has always advocated! They really want to fight to the death, and there are more than 3000 people in these places. If you really want to lose them, don't you feel bad?"

"But what now?"

"Yeluzhen wants to fight a chaotic war with us, we naturally have to do the opposite! Don't pay attention to them."

"Then Yeluzhen will concentrate its superior forces to storm the key pass, and then lure us to dispatch troops to rescue, and come to a siege to help. This was the favorite tactic used by the Liao army in the past. They have many cavalry and are mobile. Xing is indeed stronger than us. Now Liu Zheng’s navy is also doing well, and with the assistance of the navy, it is really difficult for us.”

"8000 people fought against a single Yicheng, so what if more people attacked those towns with more defenders and stronger combat effectiveness? We have prepared for the past few years to fight a fortified defensive battle with the Liao people. Yeluzhen wants to cut off the connection between our various places, so let him try first to see which one is the soft one. In addition, contact Jiang Xiong and Shi Congming, I need to talk to them, and then the navy Not only do we have to compete with Liu Zheng, but we also need to transport our mobile troops to deal with those Qi troops. They are old friends with Liu Zheng, so let's have a showdown this time!"

"As long as they hit Liu Zheng again and make the opponent's navy slump, then our confidence in this battle will increase a little bit!" Li Yan said: "The dense water network of the Jianghuai River will cut this area into seven pieces. The cavalry can't do large-scale and wide-area maneuvers, as long as there is no navy to assist them, their combat intentions can be easily guessed, and it will be much easier to deal with."

"That's right! But before that, we can let Liu Yu remember a little bit. Since Yicheng is still in our hands, the three regions are still completely in our hands. The one in this region Qi Jun, you don't have to stay any longer!"

"Pan Tao's army has a total of more than [-] people. If the entire army is destroyed here, it will deal a big blow to Liu Yu. This is one-tenth of his total force." Li Yan said with a smile: "General, let me go!"

"No, let Lu Duan go! He is Lu Shangshu's direct descendant. If he goes, Shi Congming on the navy side will definitely cooperate fully. In addition, Lu Yuan, the defender of Yicheng, is also Lu Shangshu's direct descendant. All the credit for this battle , then give them all!"

Li Yan laughed loudly, "So, even Lu Shangshu must remember you, General!"

"It's all for the country! I'm afraid Lu Shangshu is a little worried about my rebelliousness, so I have to express my opinion, right?" Gao Yingxiang said with a smile.

(End of this chapter)