Overlord!

Zhou Yu's plan is undoubtedly ambitious. Since this floating sea march is destined to hide the enemy's surprise, then don't tie your hands and march only one way. In that case, this God-given opportunity would simply be wasted.

With such a good opportunity and the enemy's rear being relatively empty, he naturally had to fight with all his strength and attack in three directions to achieve maximum results.

Therefore, after the army landed along the Zhangshui River, it immediately divided into three groups and marched!

Zhou Yu had high hopes for Zhao Yun, so he directly gave him three thousand cavalry and five thousand disciples!

A total of more than 8,000 people, with thousands of carriages, will march toward Youzhou in a mighty manner.

Thousands of carts were used, and hundreds of giant ships were used just to load so much cargo and carts. Otherwise, the size of the fleet would not have been so grand during this long sea crossing.

Not many ships are needed to carry 30,000 people, and most of the ships carry logistical baggage.

And just unloading these supplies will take no less than five days.

The army simply couldn't wait that long. If 30,000 people were unloading these supplies on the shore, Yuan Shao would be prepared no matter how slow he reacted!

So Zhao Yun can still wait, because he is marching towards Youzhou, such a long distance, no less than a day or two.

But the army marching toward Hejian couldn't wait any longer!

Although Zhou Yu said that the land between the rivers can be taken by a single general.

But Jiangdong's partial generals are also talented generals!

It was Taishi Ci and Wei Yan who were responsible for taking the direction of Hejian. Taishi Ci was a wise man in the world, especially good at using strategies.

He immediately found Zhou Yu and said: "Captain, the direction of Hejian is now rushing but unprepared. I am leading an elite army, carrying three days of food, and going up the Zhang River. I will surely capture all the counties and cities along the route and go straight to the Hejian Kingdom!" "

"This is the time when the troops advance very quickly. The army descends from the sky like divine soldiers. The enemy city can be conquered without a fight!"

Zhou Yu pondered for a moment and asked, "The army only carries three days' worth of food. Isn't it a bit risky?"

Under extreme circumstances, soldiers can carry fifteen days' worth of food on their backs. Although the soldiers are tired, they can ensure that they reach the next county safely.

But with only three days' worth of food, a slight delay at the gates and a failure to attack the city will lead to frequent dangers.

Just like Deng Ai sneaked into Yinping, he carved mountain passages and built bridges and pavilions. The mountains are high and the valleys are deep, making it extremely difficult and dangerous, and food transportation is about to be scarce, making it difficult to advance or retreat.

Tai Shici spoke generously: "This is an eternal honor, and it is a moment of contention. The Zhao army was unprepared, and when the king's troops suddenly gathered, they would be forced to surrender. Although it is dangerous, they can go!"

Zhou Yu felt the ambition of his words and said: "Yes. Let the general lead an army of four thousand soldiers and five hundred cavalry, and immediately march west to Hejian!"

Taishi Ci was overjoyed. He immediately ordered four thousand light soldiers and five hundred iron cavalry without waiting for the generals to move the baggage and heavy troops from the ship. He took only his own armor, equipment and three days of food and set off towards the river at starry night.

Although it is a partial division, it is also full of generals, including generals Tai Shici, Wei Yan, Dong Xi, Ling Cao, Wenpin, Cheng Zi, etc.

With so many generals and commanders working hard to push forward the army, the army marched hundreds of miles in just one day!

It is said that those who seek profit after a hundred miles will defeat the general, but no one thinks it is inappropriate at this moment.

This premise is that the opponent has a strong force on defense. At this moment, Yuan Jun is completely unprepared. What he needs is for the army to advance quickly.

If the army didn't need to capture the city for supplies, Taishi Ci wouldn't even want to attack the cities along the way.

The army marched for two days and quickly reached the border of Bohai County.

However, Tai Shici was still very dissatisfied with this speed.

Because after two days of marching, they still didn't see any city, and they only carried three days' worth of food with them!

After the army hastily set up their military tents at night, Taishi Ci began to patrol the camp. He scolded several of his subordinates for their careless team conduct in setting up military tents, and supervised the entire army to take measures to keep warm and warm before returning to his own tent. .

Nowadays, the weather is getting colder and colder. The soldiers are marching in Hebei. If they don't take good protection, they may lose dozens of people when they wake up.

Fortunately, in this regard, Taishi Ci had experience in Liaodong and was rich in experience, so he could provide a lot of guidance to his subordinates.

This is why he was selected to participate in the Fuhai Northern Expedition this time. In addition to being a native of Donglai, it is also because he has a better understanding of the weather and climate in the north.

Marching hundreds of miles in one day was also a great challenge for the soldiers.

It may only take a few minutes for an ordinary person to walk one or two miles, and by analogy, it may only take a few hundred minutes or two to three hours to walk a hundred miles.

In fact, this is a huge misunderstanding. The difficulty of marching thirty miles, marching fifty miles, and marching one hundred miles is almost ten times different.

Moreover, in order to prevent a large number of soldiers from falling behind, the army had to stop and wait for the long queue every time it marched.

On the first day of march, the soldiers were able to keep the queue within ten miles. On the second day of march, the queue stretched to more than twenty miles.

If we continue to march like this tomorrow, I am afraid that more than a thousand people will be left behind.

"General, we can never march like this again!" As soon as Taishi Ci returned to the tent, someone among the generals waiting in the tent immediately spoke.

When Taishi Ci heard the news, it was Wei Yan who stood up excitedly. He frowned slightly and asked in a deep voice: "What does the text mean?"

Wei Yan immediately said: "The marching speed is too slow now!"

In fact, Wei Yan wanted to angrily accuse Taishi Ci of being too conservative, but Taishi Ci was a Song general and he was a Han general. The gap in status between the two parties made him very clear that he was not qualified to challenge Taishi Ci's authority.

Although both sides are now generals, Taishi Ci is General Jianwei and Wei Yan is General Polu.

But the status of Song generals and Han generals in the army are absolutely different!

The Song general is the absolute confidant of Song Gong. If Zhou Yu, the commander of the 30,000-strong army in the Northern Expedition, gets sick and needs to choose a general to take over Zhou Yu's command, it will definitely not be Wei Yan's turn, even if Taishi Ci, Zhao Yun and others are away for some reason. , even if the army chooses a Song Dynasty Zhonglang general to take over the command, Wei Yan, a Han Dynasty general, will not be chosen.

This is also an important reason why the military generals eagerly hope that Sun Ce will change the Yuan Dynasty and become emperor as soon as possible.

It was impossible for Duke Song to convert all the generals and colleges in the army to the Song Army, but if the conversion was not completed in one day, the generals and officers in the army would be uneasy and have a sense of disparity.

So Wei Yan could only think about the words and said: "We thought that Hebei was more prosperous than the south, but we didn't expect that after two days of marching, we didn't see a single county. I asked the elders here today in the countryside, leaving. The nearest city here is also a hundred miles away, at the junction of the Huituo River and the Zhang River, named Dongpingshu. The Huituo River flows eastward into the East China Sea from here."

Hearing this, all the generals and commanders felt their hearts sinking. This situation is indeed unexpected.

That is to say, the Song army marched for two consecutive days in Hebei, covering hundreds of miles a day, but they still did not leave Zhangwu County in Bohai County!

However, according to Zhangwu County's battle plan, it was the first city that Zhou Yu would lead his army to attack, and it was also the most important place for the Song Army's logistics and food supply.

If the army hadn't been marching along the Zhang River, everyone would have thought they were lost and in the wrong direction.

Wenpin took a deep breath and said: "The situation here is indeed far beyond our imagination. Everyone in the world thinks that Hebei is rich and the most prosperous in the world. They have never thought about counties like Hejian and Bohai that used to enjoy the reputation of being rich. , there is not a single city in hundreds of miles, only a few pavilions clustered in the countryside. Most of them are dilapidated, unable to replenish military resources."

Huichi is the most important river in the Hejian Kingdom and a tributary of the Zhangshui River. It is along this river that the army can go directly to Lecheng, the administrative center of the Hejian Kingdom.

But so far, let alone Dongpingshu, the army has not even seen the intersection of Huituo River and Zhangshui River!

Under the rule of Zhao State, the people did not seem to be very wealthy.

Moreover, in such an important location, the roads have been in disrepair for a long time. The dirt roads are full of potholes and have been washed away by rain. It is difficult for even cavalry to pass quickly, let alone cars and horses.

Because of this, the soldiers' marching speed was greatly slowed down.

Taishi Ci was slightly surprised for a moment. He thought Wei Yan was trying to say that the army was marching too fast and the soldiers were exhausted.

Unexpectedly, he actually felt that the marching speed was not enough.

So Tai Shici asked: "What do you mean by your words?"

Wei Yan immediately said: "The Zhao army was unprepared, and the villages were devastated and starved, which shows that it may not win the hearts of the people. Even if the people see our army, they may not know that we are the Jiangdong army, and they will go to the city to ask for help at starry night." Therefore, we must double our efforts and reach Dongpingshu tomorrow, and then defeat them in one go. Otherwise, we will be extremely exhausted in the future, and we may be invincible and disperse."

Taishi Ci turned to look at the others and asked, "What are your intentions?"

Although Cheng Zi is the youngest, he has followed Sun Ce the longest. After all, he is the son of the veteran Cheng Pu. He is also a direct descendant of the Song army. Therefore, he was the first to agree and said: "The Duke of Song has strict military discipline. Although we are in enemy territory, We will never allow people to be plundered, so to replenish food and grass, we should focus on destroying the city. I am willing to lead my cavalry as the vanguard and destroy the enemy city at night!"

Taishi stroked his palm lovingly and praised: "Good! It turns out that the tiger father has no dog sons. As you said, your tribe is the vanguard, opening roads in the mountains, building bridges when encountering water, and marching with all our strength to Dongpingshu!"

With the unanimous approval of several generals, at dawn the next day, the army gathered their troops with drums beating, paid the soldiers heavily, and then left only a few pieces of dried meat, discarding all the extra food and grass, and the whole army marched lightly!

Although Jiangdong's army has begun to change to three meals a day, eating two meals a day is still the mainstream custom in the world.

The soldiers did not complain too much about this and immediately marched with all their strength.

This can be regarded as burning the boat, leaving only the preserved meat with me to get rations for the last meal in the evening. If Dongpingshu is not captured, the entire army will be in dire straits.

The whole army is advancing at the same time, which means that the soldiers are no longer in neat rows. They only need to rush towards the target with all their strength, just like training in the field.

The route of this march is very clear. It proceeds along the river. At the junction of the Huituo River and the Zhang River, there will be cavalry to guide the subsequent soldiers in the direction of progress.

The army ran from dawn to dusk, and finally arrived in Dongpingshu, but it was still dozens of miles away from the city of Dongpingshu.

Wei Yan then bared his arms and encouraged his soldiers to lead his troops. He was so energetic that he gathered hundreds of soldiers and arrived at the gate of Dongpingshu City late at night.

The vanguard all said: "The soldiers are exhausted and the thieves cannot be attacked."

Wei Yan angrily rebuked: "The difference between survival and death can be determined by one move, why not?"

So he didn't wait for the soldiers to go to bed, and climbed into the formation himself. He practiced with his hands in hand. He was close to the city, and he took the lead for the officials and soldiers, and then he attacked the city!

The army fought with open fire and rushed into the city.

The noisy shouts of killing and fires ignited everywhere immediately caused panic in the city.

County Magistrate Dongpingshu was captured by Wei Yan's subordinates from the cellar of the county government office. When he was pressed in front of Wei Yan, who was wearing heavy armor and a red military uniform, his eyes widened like bells.

"Song...Song...Song Army!"

When the shouts of death started, he thought there was a civil uprising!

Among today's powerful people, there are often more than a thousand or even more than five thousand guests.

It is not uncommon to expel officials and kill officials without permission.

But he usually doesn't occupy the city. He thought he could hide in the cellar and wait for the rebels to retreat.

But when he saw the bright armor on a large number of soldiers along the way, he already felt something was wrong. At this moment, surrounded by torches, the enemy's sophisticated red-robed black armor was dazzling, and he was completely shocked!

Such an elite army cannot possibly be a rioter!

And the one who best fits this temperament is undoubtedly Song Jun!

After all, their images of Zhuqijiangtian and Jiaguangshuangsun are known all over the world.

Wei Yan was not in the mood to ask his name, so he grabbed his lapel and asked the two questions he was most concerned about: "How much food and grass is there in the city! Are there any defenders in the river?"

Wei Yan's face was ferocious, and there was blood splattered on his face after killing people, which can be said to be murderous.

A county magistrate who had never experienced a battle was immediately frightened and his legs became weak, especially when the other party looked down at him like this.

His mind was almost blank, and he instinctively replied: "There are more than 500 stones including dried berries and wheat bran in the city. There are no defenders in the river. The defenders are all in Yixian County."

As soon as he finished speaking, there was a burst of excited cheers from the soldiers around him.

This is a perfect situation, which means that it is inevitable for our army to make contributions.

Wei Yan also showed his ecstasy. Although the five hundred stones of grain were a bit unpalatable, it was definitely enough to last five thousand soldiers for three days. It was even enough to feed the horses. Now the army began to collect grain and grass. The army will set off tomorrow and march along the road. The road is smooth. , you can go down the river instantly!

The Zhao family was wary of the Song army in the south, and also wary of possible rebellion in Youzhou in the north, so the hinterland in the middle was extremely empty!

This really cannot be blamed for any mistakes in the civil and military deployment of the Zhao family.

Yixian County is also part of Hejian. Gathering hundreds of county soldiers in Yixian County can prevent the rebel troops from the north from going south, which is the most reasonable deployment.

Even if the war situation in the south changes, it is still too late to transfer troops from Yixian County back to the headquarters.

But they really didn't expect that when the front lines in the south and north were still stable, the Song army would penetrate directly into their hinterland.

Wei Yan immediately said to his men: "Choose a knight, bring three horses, and bring enough food and grass. Immediately go to the landing place under starry night and inform the governor and General Zhao of the news."

If Zhao Yun's offensive is difficult to eliminate, Wei Yan will not be able to control the follow-up.

He just wants to capture Hejian!

Taking over such a large and wealthy county in Hebei is enough to be the first to report success! (End of chapter)