The river was slapping against the boats, the sailors' trumpets sounded in unison, and the warships were moving steadily forward in the Grand Canal. On both sides of the canal, there are also dense armor-clad soldiers striding forward.

This is Huainan's army marching to Yangzhou.

Along the way alone, there were as many as 15,000 soldiers, plus nearly 100 large and small warships.

After Gong Hao's whole army was wiped out in Baoying, Gong Yunda and his son finally began to face up to Yangzhou's current combat strength. In the past, they thought that after the main forces of Yangzhou were withdrawn in the early stage, Yangzhou had no resistance at all, and they could easily control it in their hands. But a night ago, Yang Guangli and Gong Hao were defeated and died, and those forces loyal to Gong's father and son in Yangzhou were uprooted, and they found that the situation in Yangzhou was far more complicated than they imagined.

Because of this, after Gong Hao's fall, they calmed down and planned for nearly two months, and then they were ready to launch an army again to exterminate Yangzhou Meijiu.

It is obvious that Li Ze in the north has invested no small force in Yangzhou, which makes them more careful.

However, the plan always failed to catch up with the changes, and just as Gong Yunda was preparing to personally command the army and attack Yangzhou with the overwhelming force of Mount Tai, Zhu Youzhen's military order was reached first. Ask them to send a group of men and horses to attack Eyue together.

Gong Yunda did not dare to slack off, so he could only personally lead 10,000 soldiers and horses to Eyue, and at the same time ordered his eldest son Gong Bin to lead 15,000 soldiers and horses from Chuzhou to attack Yangzhou, and at the same time ordered Jiang Qiaoan, the governor of Luzhou, to lead 10,000 soldiers and horses in Luzhou and Hezhou, and Gong Bin to attack Yangzhou together, so as to take Yangzhou in the shortest possible time.

Although he surrendered to Zhu Youzhen, Gong Yunda did not want Zhu Youzhen's descendants to get involved in Yangzhou. In Zhu Youzhen's letter, the other party had already implicitly stated that if he could not solve the internal problems, he would be very interested in helping Gong Yunda solve Yangzhou.

Naturally, pies will not fall out of thin air in the sky, it is easy to please God and it is difficult to send God, but it is difficult to let them come, and if you want them to go. This time, Gong Yunda did his best, not only to take Yangzhou in one fell swoop, but also to show the combat effectiveness of the Huai'an army in the battle of attacking Eyuejie Town, so that Zhu Youzhen could pay more attention to himself.

At least for now, Gong Yunda wants Zhu Youzhen to admit that he is his partner, not a simple subordinate. And if you want to achieve this goal, you naturally need strength to guarantee it.

Now, Yangzhou's reality is so big that it has also been inquired clearly. In Baoying, 5,000 defenders were stationed in Yangzhou, and the guard was Ren Xiaonian, and in Yizheng, 5,000 defenders were also stationed, and the guard was Su Bao. This is almost all the strength of Yangzhou. In addition to these two armies, there were only more than 3,000 defenders left in Yangzhou City, and there was also a naval division.

Thinking of the other party's sailors, Gong Bin couldn't help but imagine a little, just five warships, can they also be called sailors?

In this attack, what he wanted was to attack the core area, and the main force was the naval division under his command, with more than 100 warships, more than 2,000 sailors, and 3,000 landing divisions.

The weak strength of the enemy on the water is a good opportunity for him to bully others. Regardless of whether Baoying and Yizheng can be defeated or not, as long as they defeat Yangzhou, everything can be over. Fighting in the south, where the water system is developed, without a strong naval division to control the waterways, it will inevitably be difficult. No matter how good the defense system is, it will be cut into independent individual combat systems that cannot support each other because of the lack of sailors.

Is this battle difficult?

It's not hard to fight at all.

Gong Hao's failure was just because they misexpected the strength of Yangzhou, and now they have cheered up, what is it to just Yangzhou?

The cabin door was opened, and henchman Xu Yang walked in, bowed and said, "Young Marshal, General Zheng Guoqiang has sent news that the forward scout has made contact with the enemy forces on Baoying's side. According to the scouts, the enemy army in Baoying completely abandoned all resistance on the periphery and concentrated all their forces in Baoying. ”

"Send a message to General Zheng Guoqiang, let him take it step by step, be careful, this enemy army of Baoying can destroy Gong Hao's department in one battle, and the combat effectiveness is not weak, he only needs to drag the enemy and not let the opponent have a chance to return to Yangzhou, as for whether he can defeat Baoying, it doesn't matter, when I take Yangzhou, Baoying will naturally not be able to hold on."

"Yes."

"Have you found any traces of the enemy on both sides of the strait?"

"Nope!" Xu Yang said: "It was the sentinel ship in front that discovered the enemy, but as soon as the other party saw our sentinel ship, he turned the rudder and fled." ”

"Although there are many ships in Yangzhou Port, they don't have enough sailors, and there is a shortage of materials for water operations, so there is nothing to worry about, so let all the ships speed up and go straight to Yangzhou."

"Yes!" Xu Yang took the order and turned around and walked out of the cabin.

After a few moments, the entire fleet began to move forward at an accelerated pace.

Outside the city of Baoying.

Liu Yuan galloped back with a horse, more than a dozen cavalry scouts followed closely, seeing that the head of Baoying City was already in sight, but he was slamming the horse's head and stopped, at the same time, the gate of Baoying City behind him was also wide open, hundreds of cavalry rushed out of it, slowly forced forward, and Liu Yuan joined together, headed by Ge Cai.

Dozens of Huainan army scouts who were chasing after them reined in their horses and watched from a distance, and behind them, more Huainan cavalry were coming one after another.

"Why are you here in person?" Liu Yuan smiled at Gu Ge Cai and said.

"Ren Dagou is in charge himself, what is there to worry about. He has a lot more experience in fighting wars than we do. Ge Cai held the horse chopping knife in his hand and squinted at the Huainan cavalry opposite.

Li Ze's subordinates, especially those from the secret camp, most of them like to use horse chopping knives, which is naturally influenced by Tu Lichun, Tu Lichun was born in Chengde wolf riding, and the main weapon is the horse chopping knife, and these people in the secret camp later saw the majesty of Chengde wolf riding, and they have a special affection for horse chopping knives.

"Kill their spirit!" Liu Yuandao.

"That's exactly what I mean." Ge Cai said: "Ren Dagou also means this, otherwise he wouldn't have let me out of the city." ”

Huainan's cavalry army approached a thousand paces away, and Liu Yuan suddenly rode out alone, hooking his fingers at the other party, and the meaning of provocation could not be more obvious.

There was a commotion among the Huai'an cavalry, and after a while, the sound of the horn sounded, and the cavalry of more than 1,000 people shouted and rushed towards the Tang army.

There are not many soldiers and horses on both sides, there are about more than 1,000 cavalry in Huainan, and the cavalry led by Ge Cai and Liu Yuan is only 400 and less than 500 horses, the only difference is the equipment of both sides. The Tang army wore black half-body iron armor, while the Huainan cavalry wore khaki leather armor, and the Tang cavalry mostly used swords, while the Huainan cavalry used more spears.

This is actually a comparison of the economic strength of the two sides, and it is said that the steel needed to make a horse chopping knife is enough to make the spearhead of several spears.

The duel of cavalry is always fast and fast, and the victory or defeat of both sides is often clear after a hedge. At the moment, Ge Cai and Liu Yuan are like two fierce beasts in the world, crashing straight into each other's lineup, and fiercely killing a bloody path from it.

Huainan cavalry has never seen such a fierce soldier, they have not been on the battlefield for many years, the understanding of the battle between the two sides, the grasp of combat skills, and the extremely subtle changes on the battlefield are completely different from heaven and earth.

In the eyes of Ren Xiaonian above the city, the black cavalry led by Ge Cai and Liu Yuan broke through the opponent's lineup almost instantaneously when the two sides came into contact, like a red-hot iron drill inserted into the ice and snow, and quickly melted the surrounding enemies with a clattering sound.

If this piece of ice is big and thick enough, it can always consume the sharpness on the iron drill and then enter the grappling stage, but unfortunately, the opponent only has a thousand people, and after being hit hard for the first time, the team is actually more scattered.

This is looking for death. Ren Xiaonian laughed.

The strength of the opponent's entire team was still unable to withstand the attack of the Tang army, which was smaller in number, and they scattered the team so much that it gave Ge Cai and Liu Yuan more chances to break through. With these two people's sense of battlefield, they will not let go of such a great opportunity.

Sure enough, the black-armored soldiers below quickly assembled into several squads in the sound of whistles, ranging from fifty to more than 100 horsemen in each team, divided into combined attacks, gathering and scattering, perfectly demonstrating the fierce assault power of the cavalry, the fast mobility, and the almost perfect tactical execution ability of the Tang Army.

In less than a pillar of incense, nearly a thousand Huainan cavalry soldiers collapsed, the dead and wounded, the rest of the people fled in embarrassment, looking down at the city, the mountains were full of fleeing enemy troops and war horses without masters.

"Mingjin, collect the troops!" Ren Xiaonian laughed.

The sound of the gong sounded, and the Tang army that was pursuing did not hesitate at all, turned their horses' heads and rushed towards the city, and hundreds of horsemen reorganized the queue under the city in an instant, forming a complete military formation again.

Inside the city gate, a foot soldier came out quickly and began to clean up the battlefield.

Above the city, Ren Xiaonian looked at a young general beside him and said with a smile: "This is the Tang Army." Gao Peng, how do you feel? ”

The young general was an officer in the newly formed army in Yangzhou, and his father was one of the important figures in the Yangzhou Chamber of Commerce. Baoying has 5,000 defenders, 3,000 are from the Tang army, and the other 2,000 are the young men newly recruited by Yangzhou during this time.

"It's an eye-opener, and I can't wait to go into battle in person." Gao Peng said excitedly.

"Going into battle?" Ren Xiaonian smiled and said, "Then you are still a little early, wait until Baoying's battle is over, or you can go to be their assistant." After a year and a half, or you'll be on your own. I know that you have read a lot of military books, and your martial arts are also very good, but the real battlefield is 108,000 miles away from what is said in the military books. ”