On the occasion of rebirth Zhou Sui

Chapter 596
Xiyang County, Junyang County.

The former governor of Xiyang has now entered Junyang City, trying to perform meritorious service for Dayan and persuade the magistrate of Junyang.

Cheng Yaojin led his troops in formation outside the city. Although the governor of Xiyang made an oath before entering the city, claiming that he had a deep friendship with the magistrate of Junyang and would be able to persuade him to surrender the city.

But Cheng Yaojin was still prepared for bad news to come from the city, and then sent soldiers to attack Junyang City.

At this time, he had learned that Zhang Xutuo had led the navy to evacuate Wudang. Seeing that the other party came and went freely under his nose, Cheng Yaojin still felt unwilling.

Seeing that he was unhappy, Xu Shiji comforted him and said:
"Now that your Majesty has occupied Yuliang Continent, there is still a tough battle waiting for Zhang Xutuo. How can you retreat so easily?"

Cheng Yaojin knew what he said was reasonable, but he was also aware of the comparison of naval forces between the two sides. After all, he had been the governor of Luzhou for several years, so he knew the strength of his own Nanyang Navy.

Even though great progress has been made now, the gap with the Xiangyang Navy under Zhang Xutuo is still obvious.

"I just hope Li Sima can be more upbeat and stop Zhang Xutuo to vent his anger on me."

Xu Shiji joked:

"Brother Cheng expects the Nanyang navy under Li Sima's command to stop Zhang Xutuo, so it's better to hope that His Majesty can come up with a good idea."

Hearing this, Cheng Yaojin burst into laughter.

In Xiangyang, Cui Che was not in a hurry to go south, just to block Zhang Xutuo to death in the Han River.

Once Zhang Xutuo retreats to Jiangling, it will undoubtedly add great trouble to the subsequent attack on Jiangling City.

Cui Che never thought that he could recruit Zhang Xutuo to surrender. Whenever the commander of the Xiangyang Navy was replaced by anyone, Cui Che would send envoys to contact him and promise high-ranking officials generous salaries to recruit and surrender the Xiangyang Navy.

After all, this Xiangyang navy can be said to be a great supplement to the Yan Dynasty, which is weak in water surface strength.

But Zhang Xutuo, the last pillar of the Sui Dynasty in the original time and space, shouted shamelessly to see the emperor again when the army was defeated, and died generously, a loyal minister who would never accept coercion or inducement.

Cui Che knew this very well.

Since he couldn't get the Xiangyang Navy, all Cui Che had to do was destroy it.

Cui Che also has a clear understanding of the combat effectiveness of the Nanyang Navy. He can't stop the Xiangyang Navy simply by relying on them.

After occupying Xiangyang City, Cui Che immediately ordered to set up a large number of catapults on both sides of Xiangyang and Anyang, and blocked the river with more than ten iron cables, and arranged hidden piles in the river to block the passage of ships, so as to block the river.

When the Han River flows between Xiangyang and Anyang, the river channel is obviously narrower than both sides, with the narrowest point being only more than [-] meters.

Of course, this is also due to the fact that the Han River becomes narrower as it flows. The mouth where the Han River merges into the Yangtze River is only more than [-] meters long.

Cui Che deployed trebuchets on both sides of the Xiangyang River section.

Although today's trebuchets cannot throw a 400-kilogram boulder [-] meters like a return cannon, the Xiangyang City Tower can be destroyed in the first bombardment.

However, Cui Che guided the craftsmen to improve the new trebuchet through the principle of leverage, but it could also cover the entire river surface when both sides of the bank were launched.

After all, it is only more than 200 meters wide and has a range of more than [-] meters.

Although Cui Che is not an engineering student, he still understands the most basic principles of leverage.

When Zhang Xutuo led the navy back to the west side of the Xiangyang River section, he saw more than a dozen iron cables blocking the river in front of him. He didn't know how many hidden piles were standing underwater, and there were trebuchets on both sides, so he couldn't help but feel it. Scalp numbness.

For a moment, he didn't dare to move forward.

However, the surrounding counties and counties in the middle and upper reaches of the Han River have been occupied by the Yan army. Not to mention the food supplies for the Xiangyang Navy, even the arrows on the ship were severely consumed after the battle of demolishing the pontoon bridge.They couldn't even go ashore to remove the trebuchets and the iron cables blocking the river.

After all, on both sides of the Han River, the Yan Army's infantry are staring at each other.

On the water, the Yan Army Navy is not an opponent of the Xiangyang Navy, but if the Xiangyang Navy disembarks and goes ashore to fight, it will undoubtedly be ravaged by the Yan Army's infantry.

It is for this reason that the Xiangyang Navy was unable to go ashore to attack the city, plunder, and harvest supplies.

Just spending here, doing nothing, waiting for the food to run out, is nothing more than a choice between surrender and starvation.

The only thing left in front of Zhang Xutuo was to desperately break through Cui Che's blockade of this road.

"Attack with fire! Use fire ships to melt the iron ropes!"

At the military meeting, Zhang Xutuo decided.

On that day, Zhang Xutuo sent out dozens of small boats carrying tung oil as fire ships.

Just burn any part of the iron rope, and the iron rope will sink to the bottom of the river.

However, after the first fire ship was put down, before it got close to the iron cable blocking the river, ten Yanjun boats approached carrying iron chains. One end of the iron chain was fixed on the boat and the other end was fixed with iron nails.

When approaching the fire ship set down by the Sui army, people who were good at swimming would jump into the river and hammer nails into the fire ship's hull under the water.

Since the flames were on the hull of the ship, they could not burn the iron nails. Ten small boats of the Yan army worked together to drag the fire ship to a safe place to prevent it from burning the iron cables blocking the river.

There were hundreds of such boats docked on both sides of the Han River, which made Zhang Xutuo stunned.

If it were normal, he could naturally go down the river and protect the fire ship, but the catapults on both sides of the river prevented him from easily entering the opponent's range.

Even if dozens of fire ships are released at one time, it is not possible for the flames to melt down the iron chains in a short time.

Even if the iron ropes can be melted before the Yan army's hundreds of small boats drag all the fire ships away, it will only be one of them.

The Yan army had a total of more than ten iron ropes across the river. If they were to be melted down one by one, not to mention whether there was enough tung oil, the boats used for fire attacks would not be able to withstand such consumption.

Cui Che stood on the tower in the north of Xiangyang, gazing proudly at the Xiangyang Navy anchored in the middle of the river on the west side. There were compliments and congratulations all around.

Of course, this is not the result of Cui Che alone, nor are his counselors just useless people who only know how to call 666.

Dragging the fireboat to the shore was the method Xue Shou gave Cui Che, following the example of Gao Huan's aide Zhang Liang's defense of the Puban Floating Bridge.

Cui Che enjoyed the admiration of the ministers and laughed loudly:
"I want to see how Zhang Xutuo can break this iron chain formation."

At this time, the morale of the Xiangyang Navy was low. They originally thought that they could destroy the iron cables through fire attacks, but now they were easily broken by the Yan army using small boats.

There are many ways to crack the iron cable formation, but under the threat of trebuchets on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, not many are effective.

After all, whether it is pulling out the hidden stakes set in the Han River, or cutting off the iron chains desperately, it will take time.

During this period, the trebuchets on both sides of the strait were able to ruthlessly throw huge boulders onto the river.

It was smashed too much, and even the city wall couldn't bear it, let alone the wooden hull.

At this moment, even Zhang Xutuo no longer had hope of crossing Cui Che's blockade on the Han River, so he had to choose another method.

(End of this chapter)