Although the Jin army used many military horses to surround Tanggu, not all of them were actually elite soldiers. The weather was very hot this summer, and after the Dragon Boat Festival, not only did many Jurchens from the Northeast begin to get tired, but even the horses were listless.

Of course, the Han army also had a lack of horses, and Li Shifu selected two thousand elite soldiers with Huaibei as the main force, although everyone was equipped with horses, but Xu Changzhi persuaded Li Shifu to abandon the horse and go, and offered a plan: collect boats and boats from the upper reaches of the Ji River, and go down the river to Tanggu.

Li Shifu asked only to know that most of the 2,000 people under his command could swim, in this era Yanjing, Hebei area water network is quite dense, the Jin army is mostly northerners, long in horse warfare and short in water warfare, if it is downstream, it is a long way to overcome short, but it is also a strategy, but Li Shifu himself is a landlubber, and he is quite embarrassed when he hears this. Xu Changzhi said: "Li Langguan, you don't have to worry, Chang Zhi's water nature is not bad, as long as you are by my side, even if you fall into the water in Jiangxin, I can keep you safe." ”

Li Shifu gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, just do it!" ”

At that moment, the intention of the disease was clear, and the disease was ordered to collect all the ships under the control of the army, and in a hurry, he only got about a hundred small boats, and when Mughal heard the news, he sent many people to help Li Shifu build a lot of rafts, and prepared for several days before setting off. The two thousand men abandoned their horses and went down the river, and when they were about to arrive at the outer defense line of the Tanggu encirclement, the whole army was quite worried, so Li Shifu ordered a pause, and waited until the next day, when the afternoon was so hot that people were drowsy, that time to carefully enter the range of the arrow tower.

In order to guard against the sailors of the Han army, the Jin army has an arrow tower along the river, when Li Shifu's forward enters the range of the arrow tower, the arrow tower arrows are fired in unison, but either the head is not accurate, or it is not strong, most of them fall into the water, a small part of the boat, the raft is blocked by the Han army's shield, blocked a few blocks, Xu Changliang shouted: "The Jin people have no strength, we go ashore and seize his stronghold!" ”

Saying that the Han army boats and boats have rocked the poles to the shore, some Jin soldiers gasped and naked to resist the enemy, it turned out that these Jin soldiers could not stand the hot weather, and at this time they could not even wear armor, but took swords and spears to block the Han army. At this time, it was just afternoon, not only was the sun extremely scorching, but even the ground was so hot that it seemed to be smoking, and the Jurchens had to drop seven or eight drops of sweat the size of beans when they walked, and even their pants were soaked with sweat before they fought, and their combat effectiveness was extremely weak.

Before the Han army docked, Xu Changzhi led more than a dozen Han troops who knew how to swim over, and some soldiers who knew Jurchen and Khitan dialect shouted in Jurchen, Khitan, and Chinese in turn: "General Zhe and Marshal Xiao have led a million troops to attack, Yanjing has fallen, Zong Han has fled to the clouds, you surrender quickly, surrender to avoid death!" ”

The Jurchen soldiers in the Jin army will not tolerate heat, and they will feel uncomfortable even walking around in this weather, and the morale of the Han'er soldiers is even lower. After the Han army rushed ashore, most of the Han soldiers of the Jin army dispersed in a hurry, and the Jurchen generals couldn't stop drinking, so they had to abandon the arrow tower.

After the Arrow Tower was abandoned, some Jurchens still had no time to withdraw, so the Han army rushed in and dragged them out like snakes dealing with summer hibernation, and solved them one by one.

Li Shifu went ashore with the support of several soldiers who knew how to water, Xu Changzhi asked how to deal with this arrow tower, Li Shifu thought for a while and said: "It's burned!" ”

Xu Changzhi said: "It's so hot now, if it burns, we are next to the fire, I'm afraid we will all have to become roast pigs." ”

Li Shifu smiled and said, "How can it be so serious." ”

When the soldiers next to him heard this, they all said: "No, no, it's too hot!" If you want to burn it, you have to wait until the night to burn it. Now we have to use it to hide from the sun. ”

Li Shifu had no choice but to compromise and promised to burn it again at night. This night, a fire rose to the sky in the middle of summer, like a beacon fire.

This arrow tower was only a small stronghold on the northeastern periphery of the entire Jin army's Tanggu encirclement, but its fall exposed the serious problems of the Jin army's low combat strength and low morale. Li Shifu did not hesitate any longer, went down the river, attacked the Jin army, and set fire to the stronghold if it was captured. From a distance, it looks like a glowing monster heading south night after night. The generals of the Jin army in the Tanggu encirclement soon discovered this situation, but the army they sent to encircle Li Shifu was only halfway through, and the defenders of Tanggu also discovered the problem. Yang Kai was far from being a fool, and when he saw this situation, he immediately sent reinforcements in the direction of the shining firelight.

The reinforcements sent by Yang Kaiyuan and the Jin army had a fierce battle in front of the encirclement array, this fierce battle was fierce, but it was by no means exciting, in fact, both sides fought very badly, not only the sword and axe hands were weak, but even the power of the bow and arrow was greatly weakened - the use of the bow and crossbow was most effective in the season when the wind was strong and the air was dry, but in the current season of humidity and heat, most of the strength was weak.

Yang Kaiyuan came to his senses after hearing this battle report, and said again and again: "Why didn't I even expect this!" At this time, he thought of two armies, one was a part of the Weiyuan New Army, numbering about 3,500 people, and the other was a native soldier who was transferred from Liuqiu for reinforcements, numbering about 2,800 people, most of the soldiers of these two armies were southerners, Yang Kaiyuan had always used them as a reserve, but at this time, he would use them as the vanguard, divided into two roads, north and east, to attack the Tanggu encirclement of the Jin army.

This offensive and defensive battle between the two sides is not so much that the two sides are fighting each other, but that the two sides are fighting the weather together, and it is not so much to see who plays better on the battlefield as to see who plays less badly on the battlefield -- whoever is more heat-resistant will win. Although the weather is not the only factor that affects the entire battle situation, in a situation where the two sides are stalemate, one side takes advantage of this and immediately separates the superiority.

In the scorching heat, both Jinhan and Jinhan's physical strength and combat flexibility were greatly reduced, and even their decision-making thinking was affected - the weather was too hot, and people would faint. In the case that most of the soldiers are so hot that they don't want to move, a small number of soldiers in the Han army can still exert seventy or eighty percent of their combat effectiveness, which is enough for them to become the key to the entire battle situation!

The army sent by Yang Kaiyuan to the north encountered Li Shifu shortly after the attack, and after the two sides met, they quickly cleared the obstacles in the northeast of Tanggu, and from then on Yang Kaiyuan and Xiao Tienu could be directly connected, and there was no need to make a detour from the direction of Ping and Luan.

And the army he sent to the east continued to advance, driving the Jin army to the south.

"The Tanggu army is out of the city! Wuqing is lost! ”

When this news reached Yanjing, Zong Han had already left, and Zong Fu's subordinates advised him to retreat quickly, either to the west or to the south, and that he could no longer stay in Yanjing and wait for death. But Sosuke refused.

"If I also leave, I'm afraid this Yanjing City will go down without a fight! No one could run back then! ”

He issued an order, asking the generals on the periphery of Tanggu to abandon this encirclement, which was already impossible to hold, and immediately go south to join Zong Bi in order to preserve the strength of the Eastern Route Army. And he himself led the soldiers and civilians who stayed in Yanjing to repair the city defenses day and night, preparing for a decisive battle!

Sosuke's intentions were already very obvious: he wanted to use the city to buy a little time for the Jurchens' national fortunes.

"It's clear that it's already very slim, but this probably can't make the Yellow River not give up." Yang Yingqi sighed in Tanggu.

After losing several important strongholds surrounding Tanggu, the Jin army knew that it was impossible to do anything here, so they followed Zongfu's instructions and went south to join Zongbi.

If they could, the Jurchens actually wanted to go north to escape the heat, but now the situation in the north is extremely bad, and there are rumors everywhere that Zhi Yanchong and Xiao Tienu have surrounded Yanjing, and in the short term, it seems that the south side will be safer than the north side.

At this time, Yang Kaiyuan's Tanggu army had two options, one was to go north to join forces with Xiao Tienu, and the other was to go south to attack the Jin army that retreated south, so as not to give them a chance to breathe. Yang Kaiyuan, who insisted on being steady, was inclined to the former, but at the strong request of Li Shifu and other meritorious generals, Yang Kaiyuan still transferred two troops with a total of 5,000 people, plus Li Shifu's 2,000 soldiers and horses, and allowed them to follow the Jin army south to pursue. And he himself led the main force out of Tanggu to prepare to join Xiao Tienu in Yanjing City.