stubborn thief

Chapter 268
The progress of the war has finally returned to the link that Liu Chengzong and others are most familiar with.

Dai Daozi stopped looking for a boat, and led the Tangqi to gallop recklessly on the west bank of the upper reaches of the Jinsha River, spreading three layers of Tangqi in a radius of [-] miles, covering the entire battlefield.

Liu Chengzong's various generals occupied the top of the mountain, and based on several noble manors, they made the illusion that there was no way to escape, and they used Zhang Tianlin's cavalry as the outside line to hide in the valley.

Of course, the matter of finding a boat cannot be neglected. This matter was handed over to the nobles under the monk Gama, and asked them to collect ferry boats along the river.

In fact, Liu Chengzong originally had a degree in his mind about the reform of the slave system.

It is his basic requirement to be a human being to protect the slaves' survival rights in the general direction. In his view, he treats himself as a human being and treats others as human beings, so that he can be called a human being.

But it is not to kill all the nobles. This speed is nothing but the obedience of the nobles.

If he wants money and money, he needs to work hard after he is attached, and he follows him wholeheartedly, how can he confiscate all his territories.

What's more, even if they are all confiscated, they should consider a good place for others to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.

But Liu Chengzong didn't plan to experience things like the Lincong Kingdom again. It was a great sin for a chieftain who had clearly paid tribute to him to cut off the bridge when he needed it and act recklessly.

Of course, guarding the chain bridge on the Jinsha River does have a strong capital. This river is full of hidden reefs and ships are impassable. Even if it is a ferry, there are only a few places to cross it. The main transportation depends on the chain bridge.

By defending the fortifications at the bridge, you can make your opponent look at the river and sigh helplessly.

The aristocrats in Gama were quite efficient in their work. They found an old small ferry that afternoon, which could transport more than a dozen people to the other side at a time.

But the fact that they found the boat was also in the hands of Lin Congjun on the other side. Wherever the ferry was dragged on the shore, there was a centurion on the other side with muskets and bows.

Standing on the top of the mountain, Liu Chengzong put down the binoculars, pointed to a person on the other side and asked Monk Wang, "Ask Gama, who is that person with a mirror in his arms."

Strange to say, he actually saw the telescope here, and it was from the headman under the command of the noble chieftain.

Ga Ma said by his side, that is the head of Along, a brave general under the command of King Lin Cong.

As for the binoculars, Ga Ma obviously knew them too, and explained: "They all came in decades ago. Bai Li has them, and Lin Cong also has them. Bai Li's is from Sichuan, and Lin Cong's is from Uszang."

This is very novel to Liu Chengzong, in the most closed corner of the world, he can find all the most advanced things in the world in the hands of the chieftain nobles.

King Lin Cong's telescope came about ten years ago.

There is a small kingdom called Guge in the west of Uzbek, which no longer exists, but in the past, cultural exchanges were very frequent there, and there were both monks and missionaries there.

To put it bluntly, the king attracted external forces to fight against the local religion where his younger brother was the leader, and then civil strife broke out.

The king's family was arrested in the prison of neighboring Ladakh, and this small kingdom also disappeared in the long river of history under the successive attacks of Ladakh and Zangba.

People who escaped from the war came to Lin Cong, and they brought binoculars with them.

There is no shortage of crystals in Kangzang area, but there is a lack of motivation to make this thing... As Gama said, this thing is just a nobleman's toy.

The terrain here is not ideal for telescopes.

There are mountains everywhere, and they are high mountains. You can stand on this mountain and see that mountain with the naked eye. However, there are some surprisingly high peaks. It is too difficult to climb up, and it is not very meaningful for observing the terrain.

Moreover, craftsmen have almost no social status, and there are very few private workshops, resulting in a lack of materials and low productivity, so Lin Cong's slaves only polished a few pairs of lenses.

Anyone who has just started to do it, the craftsmanship will not be better.

But the king has no interest in continuing to improve technology, and the craftsmen do not have the ability to obtain raw materials, so although this thing has long existed, it is still meaningless.

Liu Chengzong shook his head and sighed, money can make ghosts turn the millstone, and it can also make any novelty over the mountains and send it to the hands of the noble chieftain.

"Big guy!"

Hearing the call from behind, Liu Chengzong turned his head, and a colorful and colorful scene with excellent texture was seen in front of his eyes, and the most local tyrant general in the Lion Army came.

Luo Rucai still wears strange clothes. In the past, he liked to wear whatever he got, so that he would often wear three or four satin robes tied together.

The severe cold in Qinghai not only did not make him break this habit, but instead made him wrap himself up more tightly. The Lu silk single clothes and the satin jacket on his body were quite good.

Luo Rucai's coat is very famous in Juerwan, and when he asked a weaver to make the clothes, he was dumbfounded.

The lining is made of rabbit fur, and the interlayer has two layers of cotton, one layer of cotton cloth, two layers of finely pressed silk, and the outside is made of fine twill satin. It is made of multicolored satin, and a leopard skin is added to the skirt.

The whole person is like a big sister Hua.

Liu Chengzong said to him that if you dress like you, it is easy to be shot to death by the enemy's random arrows on the battlefield.

Luo Rucai didn't care. He raised his fist and knocked on his chest, making a sound of iron armor. He added heart guards to the front and back of the jacket. The riveted chain mail was added under the ribs and inner thighs, which were not easily protected by the outer armor. and ass.

The butt has nothing to do with the outer armor. Liu Chengzong guessed that it was because of Luo Ru's butt that Ai Muzha had done it, so he specially added the lock armor.

Anyway, everyone in the Lion Army took off their armor, and Luo Rucai must be the one with the highest defense.

After all, he and Yang Chengzu are the richest generals in the Lion Army.

In the process of instigating the rebellion in Pingliang, the two reaped a lot. Except for gold, silver and food, all utensils and copper coins and cloth were rewarded by Liu Chengzong to the soldiers who participated in the incitement. The original county was sold out.

In Liu Chengzong's view, although Dunyue Duoji's army is inferior in terms of firearms, its strength is twice that of his. To fight a decisive battle, the Lion Army needs to maneuver on a large scale in a radius of hundreds of miles, and King Lin Cong cannot be allowed to fight. Watch the excitement on the north bank of the Jinsha River.

It is impossible for him to send people to guard the bridge all the time, so before the decisive battle, he still needs to capture the chain bridge and give King Lin Cong a small beating to make him retreat.

The general he arranged to cross the river to snatch the chain bridge was Luo Rucai.

"Big guy!"

Luo Rucai ran over excitedly, rubbed his fists and said, "One ferry, three boatmen at the Yellow River ferry, and two hundred sailors born on the banks of the Yellow River are ready!"

Liu Chengzong laughed out loud.

But a ferry is nothing. As a real "naval master" born in the upper reaches of the Jinsha River, it is not the ferry that will establish its dominant position in the river basin in the future, but the sheepskin raft that is being made.

The so-called gaining wisdom by eating a ditch, the obstruction of the Jinsha River this time made Liu Shizi find another disadvantage of his own army. They rely heavily on bridges and lack the means to cross the river.

To deal with this kind of big river lying in front of us, as long as the enemy guards the bridge, they will fall into a helpless passive situation.

Therefore, in order to avoid this situation, Liu Chengzong ordered to collect some soldiers who can make rafts from the army, rush to make sheepskin rafts, and do a good job of embalming and drying them.

This time they won't need to cross the river, but the sun-dried sheepskin is light and easy to carry. Next time, this kind of river will not be able to stop them.

"The enemy laid stakes on the bank where the boat can be parked." Liu Chengzong asked, "How do you plan to cross the river?"

Luo Rucai said: "Crossing at night, as long as the boat can pass, we can swim across."

swim over?
Liu Chengzong frowned and said, "Where are the weapons?"

"All the soldiers and armor are put on the boat. I saw that there are not many people patrolling along the coast, and they can go three hundred steps along the water quickly. If you kill a group of them, there will be a group of weapons. As long as people can pass, they will have everything."

Luo Rucai is a desperado who has been living on the edge of life and death. He pointed to the chain bridge and said, "Occupy the bridge for a quarter of an hour, the commander can transport a hundred people to the other side, and with a hundred reinforcements, he can occupy it for another half an hour."

Liu Chengzong said: "How do you plan to swim?"

"Swimming, what else is there to swim, the one in front takes a boat, the one who can't fit in the boat swims, and if it doesn't work, just swim."

"Wait for a while." Liu Chengzong raised his hand and said, "You tie a rope at the stern of the boat. It's so dark in the middle of the night that you can't see anything. The cold water makes the soldiers swim hard. How many people will die?"

"Marshal, the situation is like this, there is no way to survive by force, it's okay!"

Luo Rucai shook his head as if nothing had happened: "I'm going to swim in the back, if the bottom sinks, the commander-in-chief will capture Lin Cong in the future, remember, forget it, don't fish it, just build a grave for me."

"No."

Liu Chengzong shook his head. He appreciated this attitude of seeing death as home, but he couldn't let the soldiers really throw their lives into the river, it was too reckless.

He pointed to the iron chain bridge and said, "Do you know how this iron chain bridge is made? Monk Wang told me that a boat was used to tie the rope to the opposite bank, and the iron lock was passed through the rope to row across the sky."

"You send the rope to the other side by boat. It should be higher and stronger. This side is higher and the other side is lower. Make the armor into a package and tie it tightly and let it go along the rope."

Liu Chengzong said while gesticulating, and said: "A few ropes are also tied to the stern of the boat, and they are tied to the opposite bank in the river. Let the soldiers tie the ropes around their waists and hang them on the river ropes, and drag them all the way. Even if they let go, there is at least some protection. , others can help to pull it over."

"What's more, there is still blown sheepskin. After binding it, hug it first. Don't care if it rots or not. We don't lack sheepskin. If it breaks, we can do it again."

Luo Rucai was taken aback for a moment, took off his helmet and scratched his head, his eyes were full of confusion at first, then he suddenly figured it out, and said with a smile: "That's all right, then I will prepare like this and cross the river tonight!"

He couldn't figure it out at first, and thought there was no need to make it so complicated, just swim across it. The 200 men had already been selected, and they were all water-savvy soldiers.

What makes him the same is that all the sheepskins and other things in this army belong to Liu Chengzong, and the Generalissimo doesn't bother him.

As night falls, campfires are everywhere on both sides of the Jinsha River.

Soldiers from the Lion Camp who had had a good night's sleep dragged the ferry to the shore, and carried the heavy ropes onto the board in the dark. Luo Rucai stood on the shore, looked at the dark river, took a deep breath, took off his armor and jumped up.

He imitated those soldiers who were proficient in water, bent over and splashed water on himself by the river.

On the side of the chain bridge, the [-] bridge infantry prepared by Wang Wenxiu also woke up from their sleep to check the condition of their weapons and armor. Monk Wang told the captains over and over again the weight of soldiers that the bridge could bear at the same time.

Liu Chengzong was wrapped in a thick robe and stood on the top of the hill, looking at the hill on the shore, where the campfire went dark for a moment, and then lit up again.

Soon, the guards pulled up the blanket beside him, facing that way over the campfire.

He took a deep breath, and the crossing was about to begin.

The lonely ferry was pushed into the river, and the soldiers without armor on the boat were pushed to the opposite bank in the turbulent river, holding the bird guns tightly.

The soldiers at the stern let down the rope little by little, and the thick hemp rope floated on the river, and the ferry sailed obliquely to the opposite bank under the control of the boatman oarsman.

Liu Chengzong couldn't see the ferry, his eyes were fixed on the camp on the other side, and time flowed away in the torrential river.

A soldier came to report: "Commander, the ferry has set sail."

Almost at the same time as the soldiers reported the news, Liu Chengzong heard a thud in the distance. The sound was very soft, but it spread far away at night.

The ferry hit the rocks, the soldiers on board were knocked upside down, and some fell into the water, but no one dared to speak, and their eyes were fixed on the blurred bonfire not far away.

There was no movement, the oarsmen picked up the soldiers who fell into the water, and the experienced boatman inspected the ferry. The side of the boat was knocked out and cracks were knocked out. The distance on the other side is getting closer.

Not long after, there was another soft sound.

This time the movement sounded smaller and lighter to Liu Chengzong than before, but it also made him more worried because the ferry was closer to the other side.

The soldiers had actually reached the other side.

The soft sound was a loud sound to the soldiers on board. Their ferry slanted against the wooden piles driven into the shore by Lin Congjun's army, and the bottom of the boat was leaked.

That's what these stakes are for. They can't stop the ferry from passing through the river, but they can let the ferry pass through the river and it will be declared useless.

In their view, it is wishful thinking to completely prevent the enemy from crossing the river, but with the chain bridge and the wooden piles on the bank, they can block the number of enemy troops from crossing the river to the maximum. As long as the number is small, they have an absolute advantage in strength.

After all, there are very few desperadoes in this world who forcibly swim like Luo Rucai.

The lightly dressed lion soldiers entered the river carefully with ropes, and explored the wooden piles under their feet with their arms and legs. Finally, they stepped on the sand on the bank, and people suppressed their surprise cries.

Twenty soldiers, wearing their clothes and weapons, stepped onto the bank of the river. When the night wind blew, everyone was shivering from the cold. They hurriedly wiped their bodies, put on their clothes, and dragged the heavy ropes that had been soaked in water together. Head toward the shore, looking for a suitable stump.

Soon, a suspended cableway and ropes on the water were fixed on the Jinsha River.

A large number of soldiers on the bank jumped into the water, dragging the ropes and being pushed obliquely to the opposite bank by the turbulent river.

A package of packaged weapons and armor was hung in the air on the mountain, and was also sent to the other side.

At this moment, Liu Chengzong saw in the camp on the opposite bank, a team holding torches, winding down from the mountain like a fiery snake.

"Go and tell Wang Wenxiu that the battle to snatch the Chain Bridge is about to begin."

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)