Although Kang Baohua had tried his best, the speed of the team still could not move fast, and in the second half of the night, the temperature dropped, and the crowd was already exhausted, hungry and thirsty, and there were more and more people sitting on the side of the road to rest. The adults are better and can persevere, but the children are crying non-stop, the mother-in-law is helplessly coaxing, and the men are anxiously urging, scolding, and making a mess.

Kang Baohua and the officials began to coax helplessly, comforting the crowd, saying that as long as the front crossed the Songjiang River, it would be safe, the court had made preparations, prepared food, and promised that the court would also compensate for the loss, and would never let everyone suffer losses in vain; As for those who play tricks, they say that the Tartars are only a few dozen miles away from them, and they are chasing after them, and if they fall into their hands, their lives will be guaranteed.

When encountering oil and salt and not being unreasonable, the officials and village soldiers had no intention of reasoning with them, and they were beaten with sticks, and even took out ropes and tied them, and led them forward, as if escorting prisoners. However, this seems to be a rough way, but the effect is good, that is, it warns honest people, and it also makes the fear of wanting to take the opportunity to stir up trouble, which plays a role in killing chickens and monkeys.

This night, Kang Baohua felt that this was his most panicked and nervous night, and behind the fleeing team, he continued to contain the villagers who had fallen behind, and placed them in more than a dozen forcibly requisitioned carts. Halfway through, the cart was already full, and he and his servants gave up their mounts to the children who could not walk, and managed to keep up with the team on their legs.

"How far is it from Matsue?" Seeing that the east was already shining, Kang Baohua stopped and beat his sore waist, he had been working at the desk for a long time, where had he walked such a long way, his legs were already numb at this moment, as if it was not his own. He turned his head and asked the county lieutenant Li Hui that he was an official who had been transferred to the local area after retiring from the forbidden army, and that he had acted decisively and had a tough style, and that he had trained the officials like an arm in just one year after taking office, and had also brought out a strong township soldier, which greatly improved the public order in the county, and the villagers who had been so brave and ruthless no longer dared to make trouble, and became an arm that he could rely on.

"Zhixian, there should be Fengbangji ahead, there are at least fifteen miles away from the riverbank, and it will take at least an hour to travel now!" Li Hui was not as tired as he was, he stood up and looked at the environment left and right and said.

"How far are the enemy forces from us?" Kang Baohua looked at the sparse and slow-moving team, and knew that even if he rushed to the river bank in an hour, and there was no bridge on the Songjiang River, he still needed to cross the river by ferry, and it was difficult to cross the river all in one day, so he couldn't help but be anxious.

"The sentry reported that the enemy striker had just arrived in Lezhi Township, and even if they came quickly, it would take half a day." Li Hui said.

"Oh, why are the enemy so slow?" Kang Baohua's eyes lit up and he said in surprise. According to his estimate, the enemy army had at least reached the county seat this morning, but now it was far away.

"After the order was broken, the village soldiers were ordered to burn all the bridges and ferries along the way, and the enemy army must rebuild the bridge if he wants to cross the river, or choose a detour, how to get up quickly!" Li Hui smiled narrowly.

"Hehe, County Lieutenant Li is really a general, and the official will ask for credit for you afterwards!" This may be the best news that Kang Baohua has heard in the past two days, and the most important thing now is time, and he has bought them at least half a day, and he is overjoyed.

"The whole battle knows that the county is well dispatched, and I don't dare to take credit for my humble position!" Li Hui bowed his hand and said.

"County Lieutenant Li, the enemy army suddenly appeared in the south of the Yangtze River and approached the hinterland of Jiangdong, why didn't the imperial court make the slightest preparation?" Kang Baohua rested for a while, took a breath, and whispered to Li Hui, who was walking side by side with a stick, very puzzled by the enemy's breakthrough through the Yangtze River, as if entering a no-man's land.

"The soldiers are treacherous, false and real, true and false. There must be a reason for how the movement of the army can hide from His Majesty's eyes and let the enemy cross the river, but it is not for us to see through it! Li Hui smiled faintly.

"Gangdong is the center of Gyeonggi, the foundation of the imperial court's money and grain. Even if it's a big reason, you can't let the enemy go deep into the hinterland to abuse! Kang Baohua was not so optimistic, and he couldn't understand Li Hui's confidence in the little emperor, so he shook his head and said.

"That's why the court won't give up easily. However, we did not receive an order to hold the city, and instead ordered us to evacuate the villagers to avoid losses, which shows that the imperial court had a plan, but there were some deviations. Li Hui smiled.

"The county lieutenant once served in the army, how would you respond if you saw our army?" Kang Baohua thought about it, and asked again.

"Since Zhisi wants us to retreat to the south of Songjiang, then it is likely that Songjiang will be used as a dangerous obstacle to the enemy and encircle and annihilate the incoming enemy." Li Hui said his guess without thinking about it, and said as if he didn't believe it, "The enemy army is running thousands of miles, and it will inevitably be exhausted if it goes deep into our territory, and our army will rely on the river to wait for work, counterattack in a timely manner, and even surround it here, the enemy has no backup, and lacks food and grass, and can run rampant for a few days." ”

"Everyone go quickly, there are large army chariots and horses in front of them, and hot water, hot food, and ......" As if to confirm Li Hui's statement, at this time, a team of officials rode horses and galloped along the road in the opposite direction, and kept shouting loudly.

"Yuzhi County, county lieutenant, our army has been deployed in Fengbangji, set up a pontoon bridge over the Songjiang River, and received refugees across the river!" In a moment, the group of men and horses had come close to restrain their horses, and Gao Liang jumped off his horse and stepped forward to admonish.

"How many centaurs?" Kang Baohua grabbed Gao Liang in surprise and asked.

"I don't know what I do!" Gao Liang shook his head, saw a look of disappointment on Zhixian's face and said, "There are many, many of them, you can't see the edge at a glance, and there are troop transport ships constantly docking, and you can't count them at all." ”

"Haha......" Kang Baohua suddenly looked up to the sky and laughed when he heard this, his face full of joy for the rest of his life.

"Zhixian, Hu Xiancheng has already crossed the river to contact Huating County, and the resettlement is ready there, and the special order is to come to respond." Gao Liang continued.

"Okay, okay, let's go quickly, cross the river and be safe!" Kang Baohua looked at Li Hui happily, obviously convinced.

"Zhixian get on the horse!" Li Hui asked the official to give up a horse and help him in the way.

"It's so disrespectful!" When Kang Baohua heard the good news, the strength in his heart immediately discharged, and he suddenly felt exhausted, and he no longer pushed, and with his help, he got on the horse and arched his hand, his face was no longer anxious, and he walked towards the morning sun in high spirits......

At the same time, the Song army had reached Jiangqiao Town on the north bank of the Songjiang River, and instantly turned this not prosperous town into a huge military camp. Zhao Mengjin also came with the army and opened a command post in a small temple in the northeast of the town. The temple may not seem large, but the rubble scattered around it also shows its former glory. A hundred years ago, the incense was extremely prosperous, with more than 1,000 temples, enshrined in the Buddha, the Eighteen Arhats, the Thousand-armed Guanyin and the Tengu, the fierce general, the land god and so on.

It is rumored that because there are many monks, the bell rings when eating, and the monks in the temple rush to fast, because the temple is large, there are many monks, and the time difference between fasting is very large. Therefore, it is said: "The Taoist courtyard adds an ancestral hall, and there is no morning light for eating." ". But in the seventh year of Tianhui, the Jurchen famous general Wushu crossed the river to chase Gaozong. Passing through this place, Gaozong entered the temple for temporary refuge, learned that the pursuers would arrive immediately, and fled south across the Songjiang River. Wushu chased to the temple and saw that Emperor Song had fled, so he set fire to the temple, and thousands of temple houses were burned down, leaving only dozens of temple houses on the north and south sides. Zhao Mengjin had no intention of feeling the mood of the ancestors at that time, and after coming in, he arranged defenses to the generals and prepared to meet the enemy.

On that day, when everyone hesitated about Ni Liang's judgment, there was an urgent report back, and the army of Meng Yuan suddenly turned east with a shot fifty miles away from Kunshan, and then turned to Kunjiayi Road south in Liu'an Town, as if to cross the Liuhe River. This news completely confirmed Ni Liang's judgment, and after urgent discussion, everyone thought that Jiading City was small and shallow, and there was no regular army stationed there, and the township soldiers alone could not block the impact of the enemy army. In order to avoid losses, Jiang Xuan and Zhao Mengjin jointly signed an edict to send an urgent order of 800 li, ordering Jiading County to be abandoned, and all the people to cross Songjiang to the south for refuge.

Zhao Mengjin immediately redeployed after consulting with the generals, and worked out a triangle to intercept the enemy on the north bank of the Songjiang River and control the Liuhe River to cut off the enemy's rear route along the Liuhe River, encircle the enemy between Songjiang and the Liuhe River, and lean towards the coast. Then press the enemy army from west to east, shrink the encirclement and force the coast, and encircle and annihilate the enemy.

After determining the direction, Zhao Mengjin ordered the Kunshan garrison, which was closest to Jiading, to set off immediately, and rushed to Fengbang to set up a line of defense in the starry night, to meet the refugees who retreated south, and at the same time to block the enemy's forward and gain time for the layout of the Songjiang defensive line; At the same time, the army stationed in Pingjiang quickly assembled, erected a pontoon bridge along the south of the Songjiang River by boat, and arranged second-line positions; The main Wuxi troops quickly moved south along the canal to the Pingjiang River, and then turned to the south bank of the Liuhe River to lay out the defense line and cut off the enemy's rear road. The 5th Brigade of the Protector Army stationed in Changshu was ordered to follow up and harass the enemy's rear army and drive the enemy into the hub.

The plan was decided, and Ni Liang set off for Kunshan overnight, mobilizing the Third Brigade, the Fourth Brigade, the Cavalry Brigade, the Xiuzhou Army, and the Kunshan Army to rush to the battlefield. Yesterday afternoon, he personally led the cavalry brigade to Fengbangji, surveyed the terrain, and sent a vigilance force to the north. When the 3rd and 4th Brigades of the Imperial Front Protector arrived, they did not have time to rest, and immediately spread out to the two flanks with the main road as the center, and built fortifications and positions overnight, and built two improvised lines of defense. The Xiuzhou Army and the Kunshan Army, which arrived this morning, also rushed to their destination and built a defensive line east of Kunshan to prevent the enemy from breaking through to the west.

The armies stationed in Pingjiang were sent to the 1st Cavalry Division as the advance team overnight to rush to Jiangqiao Town by land because of the long distance; While recruiting civilian ships to transport troops, they set sail as soon as they got enough of a platform. The Fifth Army of the Forbidden Army, the First Artillery Brigade, the Shaoxing Army, and the Pingjiang Army were successively transported to the vicinity of Jiangqiao Town within one day, and three pontoon bridges were erected in the early hours of this morning, and a temporary ferry port and material transfer yard were opened.

Due to the haste of the incident, there was no time to draw up a detailed battle plan, and the tasks of the various armies were not clear after they arrived, and there was no time to allocate positions. Zhao Mengjin led the team directly under the division to set off with the vanguard of the Fifth Army, and after arriving at Jiangqiao Town, he immediately led his staff to survey the terrain, formulate a battle plan, and demarcate the defense lines of each department. He set up the Chinese army in a temple outside the town, and then summoned the commanders of the various departments to assign tasks.

The Songjiang River is one of the floodways of Taihu Lake, which flows eastward into the sea, and the river surface is still wide for more than ten miles when it enters the Song Dynasty. After the Jurchen invaded the south, the imperial court crossed to the south and moved the capital to Lin'an, and a large number of subjects in the Central Plains moved south with the regime to Jiangnan, and the population of Jiangnan grew rapidly; It has also shifted China's political, economic, and cultural center to the south, and the productivity of Jiangnan has also been continuously improved.

The rapid growth of the population has made the Jiangnan appear "less land and more people" confusion, so there is a wave of land reclamation in the south of the Yangtze River, southern Jiangsu is a plain, people can only ask for land from the barren beach, Songjiang is a big river, there are many beaches along the line, and the barren beach is also reclaimed into fertile land. The encroachment of the river narrows the river, and the Songjiang River enters the sea under the influence of the tides, the river water has a regular ebb and flow, when the tide rises, the sediment in the downstream is washed upstream by the tide, and when the tide is low, the river water washes the sediment into the sea.

When the banks of the Songjiang River narrowed and the river water became thinner, the tide still pushed the sediment downstream upward, and the water of the Wuzhen River, which had become smaller, could not wash the sediment into the sea at low tide, and the sediment was deposited downstream. Over time, the lower reaches of the Wuzhen River were silted, and when the peak of the Taihu Lake flood arrived, the raging flood could not flow down the river into the sea, so small rivers rushed out of the silted up places. After the Mengyuan invaded and occupied the south of the Yangtze River, the main road in the lower reaches of the Songjiang River was blurred, and countless curved rivers became river channels, forming a large area of floodplains, and whenever the flood peak came in the rainy season, it became a floodland.

It is precisely because of the dense large and small rivers in the lower reaches that it is not only difficult for the cavalry to travel, but also difficult for the infantry to deploy, so Zhao Mengjin deployed the main force after Ni Liang's headquarters, and still deployed defenses along both sides of the main road, and only sent alert troops to the west to prevent small groups of enemy troops from smuggling. He found that a sand spit was formed on the north bank of the Songjiang River due to the invasion of the sea tide in ancient times, and later became two sand belts as the Songjiang channel narrowed.

These two sand belts are one to two feet above the ground, and the terrain is generally high in the north and low in the south, which has become a natural damp-proof and flood barrier, and because of this, it has been preserved. One of them is located on the first line of Fengbangji, and Ni Liang's department is deployed according to this; Another sand belt is in the Jiangqiao Town area. Zhao Mengjin decided to build a position with this.

Considering the strong combat impact of the Mengyuan cavalry, Zhao Mengjin decided to arrange a defensive position with a super-long and deep multi-echelon to reduce the enemy's straight-line impact. He ordered the three divisions of the Fifth Army of the Forbidden Army to arrange three more lines of defense within a depth of nearly ten miles between the two sand belts, and placed the first cavalry division on the left flank as a mobile force, waiting for an opportunity to carry out a surprise attack on the enemy's flank and disrupt the rhythm of his attack. The rapid-fire artillery regiment of the artillery brigade was reinforced to Ni Liang's headquarters, and the Weiyuan heavy artillery regiment and rocket artillery regiment were arranged between the two sand belts to provide them with long-range fire support. The Shaoxing Army and the Pingjiang Army, which had weak combat effectiveness, stayed behind in the rear army, responsible for the transfer of materials, and served as a reserve to be dispatched for reinforcements at any time......